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HOLLAND

BY

EDMONDO DE A MI C IS,

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Author of "Spain," "Morocco," etc.

TRANSLATED FROM THE THIRTEENTH EDITION OF THE ITALIAN BY

HELEN ZIMMERN.

ILLUSTRATED.

IN TWO VOLUMES

Vol. II.

PHILADELPHIA:
PORTER & COATES.

Copyright, 1894, by
PORTER & COATES.

CONTENTS.

TAGE

Leyden 9

Haarlem 33

Amsterdam 59

Utrecht 95

Broek Ill

Zaandam 133

Alkmaar 147

The Helder 167

The Zuyder Zee 187

Friesland 205

Groningen 241

From Groningen to Arnheim 205

5

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

VOLUME II.

Photographs taken expressly for this edition of "Holland" by Dr. Cuaklks
L. Mitchell, Philadelphia.

Photogravures by A. W. Elsox & Co., Postou.

PAOE

Old Amsterdam Frontispiece.

The Old Rhine, Leyden 14

The Courtyard o.~ the Burg, Leyden 22

The State House, Leyden "0

Ox the Spaarne, Haarlem 42

The Amsterdam Gate, Haarlem 54

The Inner Harbor, Amsterdam 64

The Tower of Tears, Amsterdam 74

The Old Clothes Market, Amsterdam 86

On the Old Canal, Utrecht 98

The New Canal, Utrecht 108

A Woman of Broek 114

In a Dutch Garden, Broek 122

A Dutch Cottage, Broek 130

Afternoon in Zaandam 142

7

8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

The Town Weighing-house, Alkjiaau 150

Behind the Dykk, The Heldeu 170

Archway of the Monks' Gate, Kampen 184

St. Jan's Gasthuis, Hoorn 198

corn-mauket gate, kampen 210

Friesland Peasant-woman 222

Main Street, Leeuwarden 234

The Market Square, Geoningen 254

The Lassen-Poort, Zwoeee 270

Map of the Netherlands End of Vol.

LEYDEN.

LEYDEN.

The country between tbe Hague and Ley den re-
sembles that between Rotterdam and tbe Hague — it
is a continuous green plain dotted witb bright red
roofs and bordered by the blue of the canals, with
occasional groups of trees, windmills, and scattered
herds of motionless cattle. As one goes along one
seem always to be in the same spot and to be looking
at places seen a thousand times before. The country
was silent ; the train glided along slowly, almost
noiselessly ; in the carriage no one spoke, at the sta-
tions no sound of voices was heard ; little by little
the mind fell into a state of lethargy, which made
one forget where one was and whither one was going.
"Every one is asleep in this country," observed
Diderot when travelling in Holland; and this ex-
pression came to my lips several times in this short
journey until I heard a cry of "Leyden!" when I
alighted at a station as still and solitary as a convent.

Leyden, the ancient Athens of the North, the
Saragossa of the Low Countries, the oldest and most
glorious daughter of Holland, is one of those cities
which make one thoughtful as soon as one enters

ii

12 LEYDEN.

them, and which one cannot recall even after a long
time without sad and pensive memories

I had scarcely entered it before I felt the chill of
a dead city. The Old Rhine crosses Leyden, divid-
ing it into many islands joined by one hundred and
fifty stone bridges, and forms large canals and creeks,
which cover entire tracts where neither ship nor boat
is seen, so that the town seems to be inundated rather
than intersected by the water. The principal streets
are very wide, and are flanked on either side by old
black houses with the usual pointed gables, but in
the wide streets, the squares, and cross-ways there is
no one to be seen, or at best a few people scattered
here and there about the wide areas, like the sur-
vivors of a town that has been depopulated by death.
In the smaller streets one may walk a long while
through the grass before houses with closed doors
and windows, in a profound silence, which is like that
of the fabulous cities whose inhabitants are sunk in
deep supernatural sleep. One may pass over grass-
grown bridges, along narrow canals covered with a
green carpet, through little squares that seem like
convent cloisters, and then may suddenly emerge
into a street so wide that it might be a Parisian
boulevard, to re-enter at once a labyrinth of narrow
alleys. From bridge to bridge, from canal to canal,
from island to island, one wanders for hours and
hours, seeking always the life and bustle of ancient
Levden, and finding nothing but solitude, silence,

LEY DEN. 13

and water which reflects the gloomy majesty of the
ruinous town.

After a long ramble I came upon a huge square
where a squadron of cavalry was being drilled. An
old cicerone who accompanied me stopped in the
shade of a tree and told me that this square, called
in Dutch The Ruin, records a great misfortune which
befell the city of Ley den.

"Before 1807," he grumbled in bad French and
in the tone of a schoolmaster, which is common to
all Dutch ciceroni, " this great square was all covered
with houses, and the canal which now crosses it then
ran through the middle of the street. On the 12th
of January, 1807, a vessel laden with gunpowder,
which was stationed here, exploded and eight hun-
dred houses with several hundred inhabitants were
blown into the air, and thus the square was formed.
Anion o- those who were killed was the illustrious
historian John Luzac, who was afterward buried in
the church of St. Peter with a beautiful inscription,
and among the buildings that were destroyed was
the house of the Elzevir family, the glory of Dutch
typography."

" The house of the Elzevir family !" I said to my-
self with pleasant surprise, and I thought of certain
Italian bibliophiles whom I knew who would have
been happy to press with their feet the ground on
which stood that illustrious house, out of which came
those little typographical masterpieces which they

14 LEY DEN.

search after, dream of, and caress with so much love
— those tiny books that seem printed with characters
of adamant, those models of elegance and precision
in which a typographical error is such a wonder that
it actually doubles the worth and value of the book in
which it occurs — those marvels of lettering, of scrolls,
of ornamental borders, of head- and tail-pieces, — of
which my friends speak with bated breath and spark-
ling eyes.

On leaving this square I entered the Breedestraat,
the longest street in Leyden, which winds through
the town from one end to the other in the shape of
an S. I found myself in front of the Municipal
Palace, one of the most curious Dutch buildings of
the sixteenth century. At first it reminds one of
stage scenery, and contrasts unpleasantly with the
serious aspect of the town. It is a long, low, gray
building, with a bare facade, along the top of which
runs a stone balustrade, out of which rise obelisks,
pyramids, aerial frontispieces, ornamented with gro-
tesque statues, which form a sort of fantastic battle-
ment round a very steep roof. Facing the principal
entrance rises a bell-tower composed of several
stories, fitting one on another, and giving to the
whole the appearance of a very high kiosk. On the
top is an enormous iron crown in the form of an
inverted balloon surmounted by a flagstaff. Over
the door, which is reached by two staircases, is a
Dutch inscription recording the famine suffered in

XTbe ©l& iRMne, Xesfcen.

LEYDEN. 15

the city in 1574. The inscription is composed of a
hundred and thirty-one letters, corresponding to the
number of days the siege lasted.

I entered the palace, and passed through its various
rooms and corridors without seeing a human being
and -without hearing a sound that indicated that it
was inhabited, until I met a porter who attached
himself to me. After we crossed a large room where
there were several clerks as motionless as automa-
tons, my guide led me into the museum. The first
object that caught my eye was a disjointed table, at
which, if the tradition is reliable, worked that famous
tailor, John of Leyden, who at the beginning of the
sixteenth century turned the country topsy-turvy,
as Tauchelyn of obscure memory had done five cen-
turies earlier — that John of Leyden, head of the
Anabaptists, who defended the town of Minister
against the Bishop-Count of Waldeck, whose fanatic
partisans elected him king; that pious prophet who
kept a seraglio and had one of his wives beheaded
because she grumbled at the famine ; that John of
Leyden, in short, who died at twenty-six years of
age, torn to pieces by red-hot pincers, and whose
body, put into an iron cage on the top of a tower,
was devoured by ravens. He did not, however, suc-
ceed in awakening such fanaticism as that aroused
by Tauchelyn, to whom women gave themselves in
the presence of their husbands and mothers, per-
suaded that they were doing what pleased God, while

16 LEYDEN.

men drank the water in which he had washed his
loathsome body, and considered it a purifying drink.

In other rooms there are paintings by Hinck,
Frans Mieris, Cornelia Engelbrechtsen, and a " Last
Judgment" by Lucas van Leyden, the patriarch of
Dutch painting, the first who grasped the laws of
aerial perspective, a skilful colorist and renowned
engraver. Let us hope that in the next world he
has been pardoned for the horribly ugly Madonnas
and Magdalens, the ludicrous saints and contorted
angels, with which he peopled his pictures. He
also, like most of the Dutch painters, led an adven-
turous life. He travelled about Holland in his own
boat, and gave banquets to the artists in every town.
He was or believed he was poisoned with slow poison
by his rivals, and remained in bed for years, where
he painted his masterpiece, " The Blind Man of Jer-
icho cured by Christ." He died two years later on
a day long remembered for its excessive heat, which
caused many deaths and an infinite number of mal-
adies.

On leaving the Municipal Palace, I drove to a
castle on a little hill which rises in the middle of the
town between the two principal branches of the
Rhine. It is the oldest part of Leyden. This
castle, called by the Dutch The Burg, is simply a
large round empty tower, built, according to some,
by the Romans, according to others by a certain
Hengist, the leader of the Anglo-Saxons. Recently

LEYDEN. 1 7

it has been restored and crowned with battlements.
The hill is covered with very high oaks which conceal
the tower and obstruct the view of the country ; only
here and there, by looking through the branches, one
may see the red roofs of Leyden, the plain crossed by
canals, and the steeples of the distant towns.

On the top of this tower, under the shadow of the
oaks, strangers love to conjure up the memories of
that siege, " the most doleful tragedy of modern
times," which seems to have left upon Le}<den traces
of a sadness that cannot be effaced.

In 1573 the Spaniards, headed by Valdes, laid
siege to Leyden. There were only a few volunteer
soldiers in the city. The military command was
entrusted to Van der Voes, a courageous man and a
renowned Latin poet: Van der Werff was burgomas-
ter. In a short time the besieging force constructed
more than sixty forts at points through which, either
by sea or land, there was an entrance into the city,
and Leyden was completely surrounded. But the
people did not lose courage. William of Orange
sent word to them to resist at least three months, and
that in this space of time he would be in a position
to succor them — that the destiny of Holland de-
pended on the fate of Leyden ; and the people of
Leyden promised to hold out to the end. Valdes
offered them the pardon of the King of Spain if they
would open their doors ; they answered with a Latin

Vol. II.— 2

18 LEYDEN.

verse, " Fistula dulce canit, volucrem dum decipit
(triceps," and began to make sorties and to attack the
enemy. Meanwhile, the provisions in the town were
diminishing and the circle of the siege grew smaller
day by day. William of Orange, who occupied the
fortress of Polderwaert, between Delft and Rotter-
dam, seeing no other way of saving the town, con-
ceived the plan, which was approved by the deputies,
of inundating the country round Ley den by breaking
the dykes of the Issel and the Meuse and of over-
coming the Spaniards with water since they could
not be overcome with arms. This desperate resolu-
tion was immediately put into execution. The dykes
were broken in sixty places, the sluice-gates of Rot-
terdam and Gouda were opened, the sea began to
invade the land. Meanwhile, two hundred barges
were in readiness at Rotterdam, at Delftshaven, and
other places to take provisions to the town as soon as
the great rise of the waters which always accompanies
the autumnal equinox occurred. The Spaniards, at
first terrified by the inundation, were reassured when
they understood the designs of the Dutch, feeling cer-
tain that the town would surrender before the waters
reached the principal forts. Consequently, they
carried on the siege with renewed ardor. Meantime,
the people of Leyden, who began to feel the stress
of famine and to lose hope that the promised help
would arrive in time, sent letters by carrier-pigeons
to William of Orange, who lav sick of a fever at

LEY DEN. 19

Amsterdam, to acquaint him with the sad state of the
town. William answered, encouraging them to pro-
long their resistance, and assuring them that as soon
as he was well he would come to relieve them. The
waters advanced, the Spanish army was abandoning
the lower forts, the inhabitants of Leyden continually
ascended their tower to watch the sea, one day hop-
ing and the next despairing, but they did not cease
to work at the walls, to make sorties, and to repulse
assaults. At last the Prince of Orange recovered,
and the preparations to raise the siege of Leyden,
which had flagged during his illness, were resumed
with great vigor. On the 1st of September the in-
habitants from the top of their tower saw the first
Dutch vessel appear on the horizon of waters. It
was a small fleet commanded by Admiral Boisot,
bearing eight hundred Zealanders, savage men cov-
ered with scars, at home on the sea, reckless of life,
and terrible in battle. They all wore crescent moons
above their hats with the inscription, " Rather Turks
than Papists," and formed a strange and fearful
phalanx of men, resolved to save Leyden or to die in
the waters. The ships advanced within five miles of
the city, to the outer dyke, which the Spaniards de-
fended. There the conflict began : the dyke was
charged, carried, dashed in pieces, the sea broke
through, and the Dutch vessels passed triumphantly
across the breaches. It was a great step, but only
the first. Behind that dyke lay yet another. The

20 LEY DEN.

battle began again ; the second dyke was also
taken and broken down, and the fleet swept on.
Suddenly the wind changed and the boats were
obliged to stop. It veered again, and they went on :
it became contrary once more, and the fleet was again
arrested. While this was taking place, within the
city even the disgusting animals that the citizens
were reduced to eating began to fail, the people
threw themselves on the ground to lick the blood
of the dead horses, women and children ate the dirt
in the streets, an epidemic broke out, the houses were
full of corpses, more than six thousand citizens died,
and every hope of salvation was lost. A crowd of
famished creatures rushed to the burgomaster, Van
der Werff, and with piercing cries demanded the sur-
render of the town. Van der Werff refused. The
populace threatened him. Then he made a sign with
his hat that he wished to be heard, and in the general
silence he cried, " Citizens ! I have sworn to defend
this city unto death, and with the help of God I will
keep my oath. It is better to die of hunger than of
shame. Your threats do not terrify me ; I can die
but once. Kill me if you will and appease your
hunger with my flesh, but so long as I live do not
ask me for the surrender of Leyden." The crowd,
moved by these words, tlispersed in silence, resigned
to die, and the city continued its defence. At
last, on the 1st of October, during the night, a vio-
lent equinoctial wind began to blow, the sea rose,

LEYDEN. 21

overflowed the ruined dykes, and furiously invaded
the land. At midnight, at the very height of the
storm, in total darkness, the Dutch fleet moved.
Some Spanish vessels went to meet it. Then began
a horrible battle among the tops of the trees and
the roofs of submerged houses lighted by the flashes
of the cannon-shots. The Spanish vessels were
overcome, boarded, and swamped ; the Zealanders
jumped into the low water and pushed their boats
forward with might and main ; the Spanish soldiers,
seized with terror, abandoned the forts, and fell by
hundreds into the sea, where they were killed with
sword-thrusts and grappling-irons, or were hurled
headlong from roofs and dykes, routed and dispersed.
One fortress only remained in the power of Valdes.
The besieged once more vacillated between hope and
despair ; that fortress too was abandoned, and the
Dutch seamen entered the city.

Here a horrible spectacle awaited them. An
emaciated, ghastly populace, exhausted by hunger,
crowded the sides of the canals, drawing themselves
along the ground, staggering and holding out their
arms. The sailors began to throw loaves of bread
from the boats into the streets. Then a desperate
struggle arose among these people at the point of
death ; many died of suffocation, others expired while
devouring that first nutriment, some fell into the
canals. When their first fury was finally quieted,
the most exhausted satisfied, and the most urgent

22 LEYDEN.

needs of the town provided for, a joyful crowd of
citizens, Zealanders, sailors, the national guard, sol-
diers, women, and children mingled together, and
took the way to the cathedral, where with voices
broken by sobs they sang a hymn of praise to
God.

The Prince of Orange received the news of the
preservation of Leyden in church at Delft, where he
was assisting at divine service. The message was
immediately conveyed to the preacher and announced
to the congregation, who received it with a shout
of joy. Although only convalescent, and notwith-
standing the epidemic raging at Leyden, William
insisted upon seeing his dear, brave city and jour-
neyed thither. His entry was a triumph, his majestic
and serene presence gave fresh courage to the people,
his words made them forget all they had suffered.
To reward the citizens for their heroic defence he
gave them the choice between immunity from certain
taxes and the establishment of a University. Leyden
chose the University.

The inauguration festival of the University was
celebrated on the 5th of February, 1575, with a
solemn procession. First came a company of militia
and five companies of infantry from the garrison at
Leyden ; behind these a car drawn by four horses
bearing a woman dressed in white, representing the
Gospel, while around the car were grouped the four
Evangelists. Justice followed with her eyes blind-

Gourt^aro of tbe Burg, Xe^ben.

LEYDEN 23

folded, holding the scales and a sword. She was
mounted on an unicorn and surrounded by Julian,
Papinian, Ulpian, and Tribonian. Justice was suc-
ceeded by Medicine on horseback, with a treatise in
one hand and in the other a wreath of medicinal herbs,
accompanied by the four great doctors Hippocrates,
Galen, Dioscorides, and Theophrastus. After Medi-
cine came Minerva, armed with shield and lance,
escorted by four cavaliers who represented Plato,
Aristotle, Cicero, and Virgil. In the intervals
walked warriors dressed and armed in ancient style.
The rest of the procession was formed by halberd-
iers, mace-bearers, musicians, officers, the new pro-
fessors, magistrates, and an endless crowd. The
procession passed slowly through several streets
strewn with flowers, under triumphal arches, beneath
tapestries and banners, until it reached a small port
on the Rhine, where a great barge splendidly decor-
ated came out to meet it, on which, under the shade
of a canopy covered with laurel and orange-flowers,
was seated Apollo playing the lyre, surrounded by
the nine Muses singing, while Neptune, the savior
of the town, held the rudder. The boat neared the
shore, the fair god descended with the nine sisters,
and kissed the new professors one after the other,
greeting them in courteous Latin verses. After this
the procession moved to the building destined for the
University, where a professor of theology, the Very
Reverend Caspar Kolhas, delivered an eloquent in-

24 LEYDEN.

augural address, which was preceded by music and
followed by a splendid banquet.

It is superflous to tell how all the expectations of
Leyden were realized in this University. All know
how the Netherlands with generous offers attracted
thither the learned men of every country : how
Philosophy, driven from France, took refuge there ;
how it was long the safest citadel for all those
who were contending for the triumph of human
reason ; how, in fine, it became the most famous
school in Europe. The actual University is in an
ancient convent. It is impossible to enter the large
room of the Academic Senate without a feeling of
the greatest respect. Here are seen the portraits of
all the professors who succeeded each other from the
foundation of the University until the present day,
among whom are Justus Lipsius, Vosius, Heinsius,
Gronovius, Hemsterhuys, Ruhneken, Valckenaer,
the great Scaliger, whom the Netherlands invited to
Leyden through Henry IV., the famous pair Gomar
and Arminius, who provoked the great religious
struggle which was decided by the Synod of Dord-
recht, the most celebrated doctor of Leyden, Boer-
haave, whose lessons Peter the Great attended, to
whom invalids from all countries had recourse, and
who was so well known that he received a letter from
a Chinese mandarin without any address excepting
"To the illustrious Boerhaave, physician in Europe."

Now this glorious University, although it still has

LEY DEN. 25

illustrious professors, has fallen : its students, who
in former times numbered more than two thousand,
are reduced to a few hundreds ; the instruction given
is not to be compared with that of the universities
of Berlin, Munich, and Weimar. The principal
cause of this decline is the large number of Dutch
universities, for besides the University of Leyden
there is one at Utrecht and one at Groningen,
and an Athenaeum at Amsterdam. The museums,
libraries, and professors, if united in one town
alone, would form an excellent university, but, scat-
tered as they are, they are not sufficient to meet
modern requirements. Yet it cannot be said that
Holland is not persuaded that one excellent univer-
sity would be much better than four mediocre insti-
tutions ; on the contrary, for a long time she has
called loudly for such a change. And why is it not
made ? 0 Italians, let us be consoled : it is the same
all over the world. In Holland, too, the country
proposes and the steeple disposes. The three univer-
sity towns cry, " Let us suppress," but each says to
the other, "You be suppressed," and so they go on
soliciting for suppression.

But, although it has declined, the University of
Leyden is still the most flourishing institution of
learning in Holland, particularly because of the rich
museums it has at its disposal. It would not be
right, however, for me to speak superficially, as I
should needs be obliged to speak, about these museums

26 LEYDEN.

and the admirable botanical garden. I cannot, how-
ever, forget two very curious objects that I saw in
the Museum of Natural History, one of which was
ridiculous, the other serious. The first, which is to
be found in the anatomical room (one of the richest
in Europe), is an orchestra formed of the skeletons
of fifty very small mice, some of which are standing,
others sitting on a double row of benches, with their
tails in the air, holding violins and guitars between
their paws. Music-books are perched in front of
them. Each has a handkerchief and snuff-box, and
holds a cigar in its mouth. The director of the
orchestra gesticulates in front on a high stand. The
serious object consists of some pieces of corroded
wood, pierced with holes like a sponge, the fragments
of palisades and of frames of the sluice-gates, which
record the perils of an overwhelming disaster
which threatened Holland toward the end of the last
century. A mollusk, a species of wood-worm called
taret, brought, it is believed, by some vessel from
tropical seas, multiplied with marvellous rapidity in
the North Sea, and ate away the woodwork of the
dykes and locks to such a degree that if the work of
destruction had continued a little longer the dykes
would have given way and the sea would have sub-
merged the entire country. The discovery of this
peril filled Holland with alarm ; the people ran to
the churches, the whole country set to work. They
bound the woodwork of the locks with iron, they

LEYDEN. 27

fortified the' tottering dykes, they protected the pal-
isades with nails, stones, sea-weed, and brickwork,
and partly by these means, but chiefly by reason of
the severity of the climate, which destroyed the
dangerous animal, a calamity which at first -was
thought inevitable was averted. A worm had made
Holland tremble — an arduous triumph denied to the
storms of the sea and the wrath of Philip.

Another very precious ornament to Leyden is the
Japanese Museum of Doctor Siebold, a German by
birth, a physician of the Dutch colony of the island of
Desima, a man who, according to romantic tradition,
was the first to obtain leave from the Emperor of
Japan to enter that mysterious empire. This favor
he was granted as a reward for curing one of the Em-
peror's daughters. According to a more probable
tradition, he entered the country by stealth, and did
not get out again until he had done penance for his
daring by nine months' imprisonment, while several
nobles who aided him paid for their kindness by
the loss of their heads. However this may be, Dr.
Siebold's museum is perhaps the finest collection of
its kind in Europe. An hour passed in those rooms
is a journey to Japan. One can there follow the life
of a Japanese family through the whole course of a
day, from their toilette to the table, from paying
calls to the theatre, from town to country. There are
houses, temples, idols, portable altars, musical instru-
ments, household utensils, agricultural tools, the gar-

28 LEYDEN.

ments worn by workmen and fishermen, bronze
chandeliers formed by a stork standing upright on a
tortoise, vases, jewels, daggers ornamented with won-
derful delicacy ; birds, tigers, rabbits, ivory buifaloes,
all reproduced feather for feather, hair for hair, with
the patience with which that ingenious and patient
people is gifted.

Among the objects that most impressed me was a
colossal face of Buddha, which at first sight made
me draw back, and which I can still see before me
with its contracted visage and inscrutable expression,
representing imbecility, delirium, and spasm, dis-
gusting and terrifying at the same time. Behind
this face of Buddha I still see the puppets of the
Java theatre, real creations of a disordered brain,
which tire the eve and confuse the mind : kinir,
queen, and monstrous warriors, images of beings
partly man, beast, and plant, with arms that end in
branches, legs that become ornaments, leaves that
spread out into hands, breasts from which spring
plants, noses that burst into bloom, faces pierced
with holes, eyes aslant, pupils at the nape of the
neck, distorted limbs, dragons' wings, sirens' tails,
hair of snakes, fishes' mouths, elephants' tusks, gilded
wrinkles, twisting necks, tracery, colored arabesques,
flourishes which no lan^ruaire can describe and no
mind remember. On leaving the museum I seemed
to be awaking from one of those feverish dreams in
which we see uncanny objects that are continually

LEYDEN. 29

transformed with furious rapidity into other things
that have no name.

There is nothing else to be seen at Leyden. The
mill in which Rembrandt was born is no longer in
existence. There is no trace of the houses where
lived the painters Dou, Steen, Metsu, Van Goyen,
and that Otto van Veen who had the honor and the
misfortune as well of being the master of Paul
Rubens. The castle of Endegeest is still standing
where Boerhaave and Descartes lodged, the last for
several years, while he wrote his principal works on
philosophy and mathematics. The castle is on the
road that leads from Leyden to the village of Katwyk,
where the Old Rhine, gathering its various branches
into one stream, flows into the sea.

The second time I was at Leyden I wished to go
and see this marvellous river die. When I crossed
the Old Rhine for the first time in that adventurous
trip to the dunes, I stopped on the bridge asking
myself whether that humble little watercourse were
really the same river that I had seen hurling itself
with a fearful crash from the rocks of Schafl'hausen,
majestically spreading before Mayence, sweeping
triumphantly past the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein,
dashing its sonorous waves against the foot of the
Seven Mountains, and reflecting in its course gothic
cathedrals, princely castles, hills covered with flowers,
high rocks, famous ruins, cities, forests, gardens —
everywhere covered with ships, dotted with boats,

30 LEYDEN.

and hailed with sono; and music. With these
thoughts in my mind, "with my eyes fixed on that
little river enclosed between two bare desert banks,
I several times repeated, " Is this that Rhine?" The
changes undergone in the death-agony of this great
river in Holland arouse a feeling of pity such as one
feels for the misfortunes and inglorious end of a once-
powerful and happy nation. Already in the neigh-
borhood of Emmerich, before it crosses the Dutch
frontier, its banks have lost all their beauty ; it flows
in great curves between vast tedious plains, which
seem to announce the arrival of old age. At Mil-
lingen it flows entirely in Dutch territory ; a little
farther on it divides. The larger branch actually
loses its name and empties into the Meuse ; the other,
insulted by the name of Pannerden Canal, flows on
until it approaches the town of Arnhem, where it
again divides into two branches. One of these under
a borrowed name empties into the Zuyder Zee ; the
other, still called in pity the Lower Rhine, reaches
the village of Durstede, where it divides for the third
time. One of the branches, changing its name like
a fugitive, flows into the Meuse near to Rotterdam;
the other, still called Rhine, but having the absurd
nickname of crooked, reaches Utrecht with fatigue,
where for the fourth time it is divided into two parts,
the caprice of an old man in his second childhood. On
one side, forswearing its ancient name, it drags itself
along as far as Muden, where it joins the Zuyder

Ube State Ibouse, Xevfcen.

LEY DEN. 31

Zee; on the other, under the name of Old Rhine,
or rather, more contemptuously, Old, it flows slowly
as far as the town of Leyden, whose streets it crosses
without giving any indication of life ; then, becoming
one simple canal, it perishes miserably in the North
Sea.

But a few years ago even this pitiful end was not
allowed to it. From the year 839, when a furious
tempest filled its mouth with banks of sand, until
the beginning of this century the Old Rhine lost
itself in the sand before arriving at the sea, and
covered a vast part of the country Avith ponds and
marshes. Under the reign of Louis Bonaparte the
waters were collected in a large canal protected by
three enormous locks, and since that time the Rhine
has flowed directly to the sea. These locks are the
most imposing monuments in Holland, and perhaps
the finest hydraulic works in Europe. The dykes
that protect the mouth of the canal, the walls, the
piles, the gates, all together present the appearance
of a cyclopean fortress, against which not the sea
only, but the united strength of all seas, might hurl
itself as against a mountain of granite. When the
tide is high, the doors are closed to keep the sea
from invading the land ; when the tide ebbs, they are
opened to allow the waters of the Rhine that have
accumulated to flow out, and then a mass of three
thousand cubic metres passes through the gates in one
little second. On the days of great storms concession

32 LEYDEN.

is made to the sea. The gates of the first lock are
left open, and the furious waves burst into the canal
like a hostile enemy into a breach, but they beat in
vain against the formidable doors of the second lock,
behind which Holland cries to them, " You shall come
no farther." This huge fortress, which stands on a
desert coast, defending a dying river and a fallen city
from the ocean, has about it a certain solemnity which
commands admiration and respect.

In the evening I saw Leyden again. It was dark
and silent like an abandoned city. I reverently bade
it adieu, cheered by the thought that Haarlem, the
town of landscape-painters and flowers, was at hand.

HAARLEM

Vol. II.— 3

HAARLEM.

The railway from Leyden to Haarlem runs along
a strip of ground between the sea and the bottom of
the great lake that thirty years ago covered all the
country extending between Haarlem, Leyden, and
Amsterdam. A stranger who passes over that road
with an old map printed before 1850 searches in vain
for the Lake of Haarlem. This very thing hap-
pened to me, and, as the circumstance seemed rather
strange, I turned to a neighbor and asked him
about the lake that had disappeared. All the trav-
ellers laughed, and the one I had questioned gave me
this laconic answer: " We have drunk it."

The history of this marvellous work is a subject
worthy of a poem.

The great Lake of Haarlem, formed by the union
of four very small lakes, and enlarged by inunda-
tions, already at the end of the seventeenth century
had a circumference of forty-four thousand metres
and was called a sea, and, in fact, it Avas a tem-
pestuous sea on which fleets of seventy ships had
fought and many vessels had been wrecked. Thanks
to the high dunes which extend along the coast,

35

36 HAARLEM.

this great mass of water had not been able to join
itself to the North Sea and convert Northern Hol-
land into an island, but on the opposite side it threat-
ened the country, the towns, and the villages, and
kept the inhabitants continually on the watch. As
early as 1G40 a Dutch engineer called Leeghwater
published a book proving the possibility and utility
of draining this dangerous lake, but the enterprise
did not find promoters, partly because of the dif-
ficulties of the method he proposed, and partly be-
cause the country was still occupied in the struggle
with Spain. The political events which followed the
peace of 1648 and the disastrous wars with France
and England caused Leeghwater's project to be for-
gotten until the beginning of the present century.
At last, about 1819, the question was discussed again
and new studies and proposals were made, but the
execution of the plan was deferred to some future
time, and perhaps would never have been carried out
if an unforeseen event had not brought matters to
a crisis. On the 9th of November, 1836, the waters
of the Sea of Haarlem, driven by a furious wind,
overflowed the dykes and hurled themselves against
the gates of Amsterdam, and the following month
invaded Ley den and the surrounding country. It
was the final challenge. Holland took up the gaunt-
let, and in 1839 the States-General condemned the
rash sea to exile from the face of the earth. The
work was commenced in 1840. They began by sur-

HAARLEM. 37

roundinc the lake with a double dyke and a wide
canal for the purpose of collecting the waters which
afterward, by means of other canals, were to be car-
ried to the sea. The lake contained seven hundred
and twenty-four million cubic metres of water, be-
sides the rain-water and the water that filtered into
it, which during the draining was found to consist of
thirty-six million cubic metres a year. The engineers
had calculated that they would have to pass thirty-
six million two hundred thousand cubic meters of
water each month from the lake to the draining
canal. Three enormous steam-engines were sufficient
for this work. One was placed at Haarlem, another
between Haarlem and Amsterdam, the third near
Leyden. This last was named Leeghwater, in honor
of the engineer who had first proposed the draining of
the lake. I saw it, for not only has it been preserved,
but it still works occasionally to draw off the rain-
water and the water of filtration into the draining
canal. So it is also with the other two engines, which
are exactly like the first. They are enclosed in large
round embattled towers, each of which is encircled by
a row of arched windows, from which extend eleven
large arms that rise and fall with majestic slowness
and set in motion eleven pumps, each capable of
raising the enormous weight of sixty-six cubic metres
of water at every stroke. This is the appearance of
these three huge iron vampires, which have sucked
up a sea. The first to be put in motion was the

38 HAARLEM.

Leeghwater, on the 7th of June, 1849. After a
short time the two other engines began to work, and
from that moment the level of the lake was lowered
a centimetre every day. After thirty-nine months
of work the gigantic undertaking was accomplished ;
the engines had pumped out nine hundred and
twenty-four million two hundred and sixty-six thou-
sand one hundred and twelve cubic metres of water ;
the Sea of Haarlem had disappeared. This work,
Avhich cost seven million two hundred and forty
thousand three hundred and sixty-eight florins, gave
Holland a new province of eighteen thousand five
hundred hectares of land. From every part of Hol-
land settlers crowded in. At first they sowed only
colza, which brought forth a marvellous crop : then
all kinds of plants were tried, and all succeeded.
As the population is composed of people from every
province, all systems of cultivation vie with each
other there. Farmers from Zealand, Brabant, Fries-
land, Groningen, and North Holland are met with,
and all the dialects of the United Provinces are
spoken ; it is a little Holland within Holland.

As one approaches Haarlem, villas and gardens
become more frequent, but the city remains hidden
by trees, above which peeps only the very high
steeple of the cathedral, surmounted by a large iron
crown shaped like the bulb of a Muscovite tower.
On entering the town, one sees on every side canals,
windmills, drawbridges, fishing-smacks, and houses

HAARLEM. 39

reflected in the water, and when after a short walk
one comes out into a wide square, one exclaims with
delight and surprise, " Oh, here we are really in
Holland!"

At one angle stands the cathedral, a high bare
building, covered by a roof in the shape of an acute
prism, which seems to cleave the sky like a sharp axe.
Opposite the cathedral is the old Municipal Falace,
crowned with battlements, with a roof like an over-
turned ship and a balcony that looks like a bird-cage
hung over the door. One part of its front is hidden
by two queer little houses resembling somewhat a
theatre, a church, and a firework castle. On the
other sides of the square are houses of the most
capricious designs of Dutch architecture — pitching
forward, black, red, or vermilion — their fronts stud-
ded with white stones and resembling so many chess-
boards. A row of trees is planted almost against
the wall, and hides all the windows of the second
story. Next to the cathedral stands an eccentric
building which is used for public auctions, a monu-
ment of fantastic architecture — half red, half white,
all steps, frontispieces, obelisks, pyramids, bas-reliefs,
nameless ornaments in the form of a centre-table, of
chandeliers and extinguishers, which seem to have
been thrown by chance against the building. Alto-
gether, it has the appearance of an Indian pagoda
which by an aberration of Spanish taste has been
transformed into a Dutch house by a tipsy architect.

40 HAARLEM.

But the strangest thing is an ugly bronze statue in
the midst of the square, Avhich bears the inscription :
" Laurentius Johannis filius Costerus, Typographic
litteris mobilibus e metallo fusis inventor." " What!"
exclaims the ignorant stranger, — "What is this?
Was not Gutenberg the inventor of printing ? Who
is this pretender — this Costerus ?"

This Costerus, Laurens Janszoon by name, was
called Coster because he was a sexton, for which
Coster is the Dutch word. Tradition relates that
Coster, born at Haarlem near the end of the four-
teenth century, Avhile walking one day in the fine
wood which is situated to the south of the town,
broke off a branch of a tree, and to amuse his chil-
dren cut some raised letters on it with his knife ; this
occurrence first suggested to his mind the idea of
printing. In fact, when he returned home he dipped
these coarse models into ink, pressed them upon paper,
made new trials, brought the letters to greater per-
fection, printed entire pages, and at last, after ardu-
ous studies, fatigues, disappointment, and persecution
to which he was subjected by copyists and imitators,
he succeeded in producing his great work, which was
the Speculum Humane? Salvationist printed in the
German language, in double columns with Gothic
type. This Speculum Humance Salvationist which
is on view at the Municipal Palace, is partly printed
from wooden blocks and partly in movable type. It
is dated 1440, the earliest date which can be admitted

HAARLEM. 41

for the invention of movable type, in which, after
all, the invention of printing consists. If we be-
lieve in this Speculum, Gutenberg is out of the ques-
tion. But the proofs? Here begin the difficulties
of the Dutch inventor. Among his belongings which
are preserved in the Municipal Palace there are no
movable types, and every other kind of instrument,
written document, and form of attestation is lacking
to prove undoubtedly that this Speculum, or at least
the part printed with movable type, was printed by
Coster. How do the supporters of the Dutch in-
ventor answer for this deficiency ? Here another
legend comes to light : On Christmas night of the
year 1440, while Coster, old and sick, was assisting
at midnight mass, praying God to give him strength to
bear persecutions and to struggle on against the envy
of his enemies, one of his workmen, whom he had em-
ployed after taking his oath not to betray the secret
of his invention, stole all his tools, types, and books.
Coster at once on his return discovered what had
taken place, and died of anguish. According to the
legend, this sacrilegious thief was Faustus of Mayence,
or the eldest brother of Gutenberg, and thus it is
explained why the glory of the invention has passed
from Holland to Germany, and how the statue of
poor Coster has a right to stand in the square at
Haarlem like an avenging spectre. An entire library
has been written by Holland and Germany in this
dispute, which lasted for centuries, and until a few

42 HAARLEM.

years ago it was uncertain whether the traveller was
to raise his hat to the statue at Mayence or to that at
Haarlem. Germany repulsed the pretensions of the
Dutch with supreme disdain, and Holland obstinately
ignored the claims of Germany, although with waning
confidence. But now it seems probable that the
question has been settled for ever. Doctor Van der
Linde, a Hollander, has published a book entitled
" The Legend of Coster," after reading which even
the Dutch do not believe that Coster was the inventor
of printing any more than that Tubal Cain discovered
the use of iron or that Prometheus stole the fire from
heaven. Consequently, the statue of poor Coster
may some day be fused into a fine cannon to admon-
ish the pirates of Sumatra. But to Holland will
always remain in the field of typography the uncon-
tested glory of the Elzevirs, the enviable honor of
printing almost all the great works of the century
of Louis XIV., of diffusing through Europe the
French philosophy of the eighteenth century, of wel-
coming, defending, and propagating human thought
when it was proscribed by despotism and abjured by
fear.

In the Municipal Palace at Haarlem is a picture-
gallery which might be called Frans Hal's Museum,
because the masterpieces of this great artist are its
principal ornament. Hals was born, as every one
knows, at Malines at the end of the sixteenth cen-
turv ; he lived many vears at Haarlem when land-

Qn tbe Spaarne, Ibaarlem.

HAARLEM. 43

scape-painting flourished there, in the company of
the other illustrious Dutch artists, Ruysdael, Wij-
nants, Brouwer, and Cornelis Bega. The large prin-
cipal room of the gallery is almost entirely occupied
by his paintings. On entering one finds one's self
under a singular illusion. One seems to be entering;
a banqueting-hall, where are a number of tables, as
was customary at all large banquets ; at the sound
of footsteps all the guests have turned to look at the
stranger. There are groups of officers, of archers,
of hospital administrators, all life-size, some seated,
some standing round tables which are splendidly
decorated, and all have their faces turned toward
the spectator, as if they were in position in front of
a camera. Everywhere one turns one sees nothing
but fat, healthy good-natured faces, and frank eyes
which seem to ask, "Do you recognize me?" And
so real is the expression of the faces that one seems
to recognize them all, to know who they are, and to
have met them several times in the streets of Levden
and the Hague. This truth of expression, the jollity
of the scene, the rich full dress of the seventeenth
century, the arms, the tables, and the fact that there
are no other pictures near to call one's thoughts to
other times, make one seem really to be looking at
the Holland of two hundred years ago, to feel the
surroundings of that great century, and to live in
the midst of those strong, sincere, cordial people.
AVe are no longer in the room of a museum : we seem

44 HAARLEM.

to be taking part in the representation of an histor-
ical comedy, and should not be at all surprised to see
Maurice of Orange or Frederick Henry appear
before us. The most remarkable of these pictures
represents nineteen archers grouped round their
colonel. It is a masterpiece of the high Dutch
school: the design is grand and bold, the coloring
warm and brilliant ; it is a work worthy of standing
beside the famous ''Banquet of the National Guard"
by Van der Heist. Besides other pictures by other
artists, I remember one by Peeter Brueghel the
Younger — a comic illustration of more than eighty
Flemish proverbs, which I cannot recall without
laughing. But it is a picture which cannot be de-
scribed for many good reasons.

In one of the rooms of the gallery is preserved the
banner that belonged to the famous heroine Kanau
Hasselaer, Haarlem's Joan of Arc, who in 1572
fought at the head of three hundred armed Amazons
against the Spaniards, who were besieging the town.
The defence of Haarlem, although not crowned with
victory, was no less glorious than that of Lcyden.
The town was surrounded with old walls and crumb-
ling towers, and besides the legion of women did not
contain more than four thousand armed defenders.
The Spaniards, after they had cannonaded the walls
for three days, advanced confidently to the assault,
but were repulsed by a torrent of bullets, rocks, boil-
ing oil, and flaming pitch, and were forced to resign

HAARLEM. 45

themselves to a regular siege. The town was relieved
by the country-people, men, women, and children,
who, favored by the December mists, glided over the
ice with their sledges and provided the inhabitants
-with provisions of food and ammunition. William
of Orange did all in his power to compel the Span-
iards to raise the siege. But fortune did not smile
on him. The three thousand Dutch soldiers who
were first sent forward were defeated, the prisoners
were hanged, and an officer was put to death sus-
pended head downward from the gallows. Another
attempt to give assistance met with the same fate :
the Spaniards cut oif the head of an officer who was
their prisoner and threw it into the town with an
offensive inscription. The citizens in their turn
threw into the enemy's camp a tub containing eleven
Spanish prisoners' heads and a note saying, "The
ten heads are sent to the Duke of Alva in payment
of his tax of tenths, with one head for interest."
Fierce battles followed each other in rapid succession,
mixed with explosions of mines and countermines in
the heart of the earth, until the 28th of January,
when a hundred and seventy sledges loaded with
bread and powder were brought into the town by
Avay of the Lake of Haarlem. Then Don Frederick,
the leader of the Spaniards, began to despair, and
was on the point of raising the siege, but the Duke
of Alva, his father, commanded him to persist. It
began to thaw, and it became difficult to carry pro-

46 HAAELEM.

visions to the town ; the citizens began to suffer
famine. On the 25th of March they made a sortie,
in which they burnt three hundred tents and took
seven cannon, but the results of this victory were
counteracted by a defeat which William's fleet suf-
fered in a battle with the Spanish navy in the
Lake of Haarlem. The defeat of the fleet carried
despair to the besieged. In the month of June they
were already reduced to the last horrors of famine.
At the beginning of July they tried in vain to come
to terms with the enemy ; on the 8th, five thousand
Dutch volunteers, sent by William of Orange to suc-
cor the town, were routed, and a prisoner with his
nose and ears cut off was sent to Haarlem with the
tidings. Then the citizens decided to form a com-
pact legion, with their women and children in the
centre, and, rushing out of the walls, to try to force
passage through the middle of the enemy's camp.
Don Frederick, when he heard of this project, hypo-
critically promised to pardon the inhabitants if the
town surrendered without delay. The town surren-
dered, the Spaniards entered, slew all the soldiers in
the garrison, beheaded a thousand citizens, tied two
hundred others together, and threw them, two by
two, into the lake. The Spanish army paid for this
Pyrrhic victory, obtained by treachery and disgraced
by slaughter, with twelve thousand men.

From the picture-gallery I went to the cathedral,
in the hope of hearing Christian Muller's famous

HAAKLEM. 47

organ played. It is said to be the largest organ in
the world, and among its glories is enumerated the
honor of having been played on by Handel and by a
charming boy of ten years of age called Mozart.
The church, founded toward the end of the fifteenth
century, is as white and bare as a mosque. It has
a very high ceiling of cedar-wood, which is supported
by twenty-eight light columns. In a wall there still
may be seen a cannon-ball from the siege of 1573 ; in
the middle is a monument consecrated to the memory
of the engineer Conrad, builder of the locks of Kat-
wijk, and of his colleague Brunings, " the protector
of Holland against the fury of the sea and the might
of the tempests." Behind the choir the great poet
Bilderdijk lies buried. Some little models of war-
ships recording the fifth Crusade, which was led by
Count William I. of Holland, are hung from an arch,
and near the pulpit is the tomb of Coster. The
organ, supported by porphyry columns, covers one
entire wall from the pavement to the roof; it has four
keyboards, sixty-four registers, and five thousand
pipes, some of which are twice as high as a Dutch
house. At that moment there were several strangers
present, the organist did not delay, and I was able to
hear " the cannon of God sing," as Victor Hugo ex-
pressed it. As I am not familiar with this art, I can-
not tell in what respects the organ of the cathedral
of Haarlem differs from that of St. Paul's in London
or from the organs of the cathedrals of Freiburg and

48 HAARLEM.

Seville. I heard the usual clang that announces the
battle, a formidable tumult of cannon-shots, of cries
of the wounded, and the victorious blasts of trumpets,
•which withdrew from valley to valley until they were
lost in the distant mountains. Then commenced a
peaceful harmony of flutes, clarions, and pastoral
songs, which infused into the heart all the sweet-
ness of the life of the fields. Suddenly the storm
broke, thunderbolts fell, and the foundations of the
church trembled. Then the tempest was stilled to the
sound of the tremulous and solemn son£ of a legion
of angels advancing slowly from an immense distance
and dispersing among the clouds, cursed by an army
of demons who bellowed from the entrails of the
earth. After this followed an air from the Fills de
Madame Angot, which persuaded us that it had all
been a joke and that the organist was recommending
himself to the courtesy of strangers.

From the summit of the steeple the eye surve}Ts
all the beautiful country of Haarlem, dotted with
woods, windmills, and villages. I saw the two large
canals stretching to Leyden and Amsterdam, fur-
rowed by long rows of sail-boats. The steeples of
Amsterdam appeared in the distance. I could look
over the plain of what was once the Lake of Haarlem,
the village of Bloemendael, surrounded by cottages
and gardens, the bare downs which defend this little
terrestrial paradise from the storms, and beyond the
downs the North Sea, which appeared like a luminous

HAARLEM. 49

livid streak across the vapors of the horizon. On
leaving the church I turned down a street and walked
about the town at random.

Although in many respects Haarlem resembles all
other Dutch cities, it has an individual character
which stamps it distinctly on the memory. It is a
pretty compact town, in which a traveller feels a
much greater wish than elsewhere in Holland to have
the arm of his wife or of some pleasant lady friend
tucked under his own. It is a woman's town. A
wide water-course called the Spaarne, which serves
as a draining canal between the waters of the ancient
Lake of Haarlem and the Gulf of the Zuyder Zee,
crosses the city, dividing it into several parts and sur-
rounding it like the moat of a fortress. The internal
canals are bordered on either side by large trees, which
almost form a green arch above the water, so that
every canal seems like a lake in a garden, and the
barges and boats glide along in the shade as if they
were out for pleasure rather than business. All the
streets are paved with bricks, all the houses are of
brick, so that one sees nothing but red, red, eter-
nal red, to right, to left, above, below, everywhere
one looks, — as if the town had been cut out of a
mountain of blood-colored jasper. A large number
of houses have gables with eight, ten, and even six-
teen steps, like churches that children cut out of
paper with scissors. Very few looking-glasses are
seen, shop signs are rare, and nothing is hung from
Vol. II.— 4

50 HAARLEM.

the windows. The streets are so clean that one
hardly dares to knock off the ashes of one's cigar.
For a long way not a living soul is met, except per-
haps a girl of twelve or fourteen going to school
alone, with her hair down her back and her books
under her arm. There is no clank of machinery, no
rumble of carts, no cries of hucksters and peddlers.
The entire town has an indefinable, aristocratic re-
serve, a modest coquetry which piques one's curosity,
and one walks on and on, as if by so doing one may
discover some charming secret which the whole town
is trying to conceal from strangers.

A beautiful forest of beech trees extends to the
south. It is believed to be the remnant of an im-
mense forest which originally covered a great part
of Holland. It is crossed by avenues and is full of
pavilions, coffee-houses, and club-rooms. In the mid-
dle it opens into a very pretty park containing a
herd of deer. In a lovely shady part of the wood
stands a small monument erected in 1823 in honor
of Laurens Coster, who, according to the legend,
here cut those famous beech branches out of
which he carved the first letters. I walked round
all the shady recesses of the wood, met a boy who
greeted me with a polite " Bon jour" turning his face
away from me. I asked the way of a girl who wore
a golden circle round her head, and she blushed as
red as a peony ; I borrowed a light from a peasant
reading a newspaper. I passed near a lady on horse-

HAARLEM. 51

back, who looked at me with two eves •which were as
light as the serene blue sky — then I turned toward
the entrance of the wood, where there is a gallery
of modern Dutch paintings Avhich I have no remorse
in passing over in silence.

It will, however, be well to observe, apropos of
this gallery, that Dutch painting has recently made
great progress in many respects. The favorite style
is still the small landscape, and in this field there is
no change, but the painting of home-life has been
raised into a higher sphere. It has left the rabble
for the middle class ; it has abandoned the tavern
life to devote itself lovingly to those sober, severe,
and courageous fishermen who toil and suffer in
silence on the Dutch coast from Holder to the mouth
of the Mouse : it has forgotten the orgies and the
low dance, and now represents sailors departing for
the herring-banks, their wives waving them a last
farewell from the shore, and crying " God be with
you!" a fisherman returning after a long voyage to
his dear Scheveningen, and his children running to
meet him with open arms; an angry sea and the
little family of the sailor with their eyes filled with
tears gazing anxiously from the top of the dunes for
a black speck on the dark horizon. Slavish imita-
tion of detail has disappeared, and painting has
become bolder and wider in scope. Few artists leave
their fatherland to study, and those who do go out
lose their national character ; but most of them re-

52 HAARLEM.

main, and their paintings — above all, their landscapes
— are now, as in times past, a faithful reflection of the
country, an original, modest style of art, full of mel-
ancholy sweetness and repose.

Near the wood is the garden of Herr Krelage,
Avhere the finest tulips in Holland are grown.

This word " tulip " recalls one of the strangest
popular follies that has ever existed, which showed
itself in Holland about the middle of the seventeenth
century. The country at that time had reached the
height of its prosperity: lavish expenditure had
taken the place of parsimony ; the houses of the
rich, which even at the beginning of the century
were extremely modest, had been transformed into
small palaces ; velvet, silk, and pearls had substituted
the patriarchal simplicity of dress. Holland had
become vain, ambitious, and lavish. After they
had filled their houses with pictures, carpets, china,
and precious objects from every country in Europe
and Asia, the rich manufacturers of the great Dutch
cities began to spend large sums in ornamenting
their gardens with tulips, the flower that of all others
best satisfies the innate greed for bright colors that
the Dutch nation has always manifested. This search
after tulips rapidly promoted their cultivation. Gar-
dens were laid out everywhere, experiments were
made, new varieties of the favorite flower were
sought for. The passion became general : on every
side unheard-of tulips budded forth in curious shapes,

HAARLEM. 53

impossible shades, unexpected unions of colors, full
of contrasts, caprices, and surprises. The prices
rose wonderfully: a new style of marking, a new
shape of those cherished petals, meant a fortune.
Hundreds of people gave themselves up to this cul-
ture with the fury of maniacs, and the whole coun-
try talked of nothing but petals, colors, bulbs, flower-
pots, and seeds. This fad reached such a height that
all Europe was laughing at it. The bulbs of the
rarest tulips brought fabulous prices; some cost as
much as a house, a farm, a windmill, and were given
as dowries to the daughters of wealthy families. In
one town, I do not know which, two cartloads of
corn, four cartloads of barley, four oxen, twelve
sheep, two pipes of wine, four casks of beer, a
thousand pounds of cheese, a complete suit of
clothes, and a silver bowl were offered for one bulb.
The bulb of a tulip called Admiral Liefkenskock was
sold for eight hundred francs. Another bulb of a
tulip called Semper Augustus was bought for thirteen
thousand Dutch florins. A bulb, Admiral Enkhuyzen,
fetched more than two thousand crowns. Once when
there were only two bulbs of Semper Augustus in the
whole of Holland, one at Amsterdam, the other at
.Haarlem, an offer was made for one of them of four
thousand six hundred florins, a splendid carriage,
and two roan horses with their finest harness, yet
this offer was refused. Another bidder offered twelve
acres of land, and he too was refused. In the regis-

54 HAAELEM.

ter of Alkmaar it is recorded that in 1637 there was
a sale in that town of a hundred and twenty tulips
for the benefit of the Orphan Asylum, and that this
sale realized a hundred and eighty thousand francs.
Then the Dutch began to speculate in flowers, and
especially in tulips, as men speculate in stocks.
Brokers sold bulbs which they did not possess for
enormous sums, agreeing to provide them on a cer-
tain day, and they made bargains for a much greater
number of tulips than the whole country of Holland
could provide. It is said that one town alone sold
twenty millions of francs' worth, and that one of the
Amsterdam brokers gained more than sixty-eight
thousand florins in four months. On one side they
sold what they did not possess, on the other what
they could never have had ; the market passed from
one hand to another, the difference was paid, and the
bulbs by which many were enriched or impoverished
bloomed only in the imagination of the merchants.
At last matters reached such a stage that many
buyers refused to pay the prices agreed upon, and
lawsuits and confusion followed, so that at last the
government decreed that these obligations should be
considered as ordinary debts and made payable by
law. Then prices suddenly fell to fifty florins for
the Semper Augustus, and the scandalous traTic
ceased.

Flower-culture is no longer a mania, but a labor
of love, and the city of Haarlem is its chief temple.

TLbc Hmsterfcam (Bate, Ibaarlem.

HAARLEM. 55

Haarlem still provides a great part of Europe and
South America with flowers. The town is sur-
rounded with gardens which at the end of April
and the beginning of May are covered with myriads
of tulips, hyacinths, carnations, primroses, anemones,
ranunculi, camellias, cowslips, cacti, and geraniums
— a rich garland encircling the city, from which
travellers of every part of the world cull a posy as
they pass. The hyacinth of late years has risen in
favor, but the tulip is still the king of the flower-
beds and the supreme glory of Holland. I should
have to change my pen for the brush of Van
Huysum or Menendez to describe the pomp of
those bold, luxurious, brilliant colors : if the sensa-
tion of sight may be compared to that of hearing, I
should say that they are like shouts of joy and the
laughter of love in the green silence of the gardens,
and that thev turn the head like the sonorous music
of a ball.

Here are the tulips called the Duke of Toll, the
tulips which are called simple earlies, of which there
are more than six hundred varieties, the double ear-
lies, the late, which are divided into unicolored,
fine, superfine, and the improved. The fine, again,
are subdivided into violet, rose, and variegated. Then
there is the monster or parrot species, the hybrids,
the thieves, classified into a thousand orders of nobil-
ity and excellence, tinted with every shade that the
human mind can imagine, spotted, striped, fluted,

56 HAARLEM.

variegated, with wavy, fringed, and crimped leaves,
decorated with silver and gold medals, distinguished
by a thousand names of generals, artists, birds,
rivers, poets, cities, queens, and by a thousand affec-
tionate and presumptuous adjectives which record
their metamorphoses, their adventures, and their
triumphs, and leave in the mind a sweet confusion
of beautiful images and gentle thoughts.

After this it seemed to me that I might honestly
leave for Amsterdam, where an irresistible curiosity
Avas drawing me. I had already put my foot on the
step and fixed my eye on a comfortable seat beside
the window of the railway carriage, when I felt a
jerk at my coat-tail, and turning round saw the
spectre of one of my courteous Italian critics, who
said to me in a tone of reproof, " But tell me, the
commerce, industries, and manufacturies of Haarlem,
where have you left them ?"

"Ah, it is true," I answered; "you are one of
those persons who wish for a book to contain de-
scriptions, and be a guide, dictionary, treatise, index,
and statistical record all in one ? Well, I will con-
tent you. Know, then, that at Haarlem there is a
very rich museum of physical, chemical, optical, and
hydraulic instruments, left to the town by a certain
Peter Teyler van der Hulst, with a sum to be devoted
every year to scientific competitions ; a celebrated
foundry of Greek and Hebrew characters ; and
several fine manufactories of cotton goods founded

HAARLEM. 57

under the patronage of King William II. ; laundries
which are famous all over Holland, and — "

At this moment the whistle for departure sounded.

"One moment!" cried my critic, trying to keep
me at the window. " What is the size of the electric
machines in Teyler's museum ? And how much cot-
ton cloth do the manufactories produce a year ? And
what soap is used in the laundries?"

" Ah, leave me in peace !" I cried, shutting the
door; the train was already in motion. "Do you not
know the proverb that he who bears the cross cannot
sin? r

And now for thee, Amsterdam of the ninety isl-
ands ! Venice of the North ! Queen of the Zuyder
Zee!

AMSTERDAM.

AMSTERDAM.

If two travellers, one a poet and the other an
engineer, "were to travel together for the first time
from Haarlem to Amsterdam, a curious and unusual
circumstance would occur: the engineer would feel
himself something of a poet, and the poet would
wish he was an engineer. Such is this strange coun-
try, in which to stir the imagination and arouse en-
thusiasm a writer has only to enumerate the kilo-
metres, the cubic metres of water, and the vears of
labor. Hence a poem on Holland would be but a
poor concern without an appendix stocked with fig-
ures, and the report of an engineer would require
only verse and rhyme to become a splendid epic.

As soon as we left Haarlem the train crossed a fine
iron bridge of six arches which spans the Spaarne,
and the bridge, when the train has passed, opened
in the middle as if by enchantment, and left a gap
for ships to glide through. Two men, at a sign from
the foreman, by working the proper machinery can
in two minutes detach two arches from the bridge,
and when another train approaches can put them in
place again with equal rapidity. Soon after we had

61

G2 AMSTERDAM.

crossed the bridge we saw the waters of the Y spai Id-
ling on the horizon.

Here one feels more keenly than ever a certain
sense of uneasiness Avhich often attends those who
are travelling in Holland for the first time. The
railroad runs along a strip of ground separating the
the bottom of the ancient Sea of Haarlem from the
waters of the Y, so called from its shape, which is a
prolongation of the Gulf of the Zuyder Zee that
penetrates into the land between Amsterdam and
North Holland as far as the dunes of the North Sea.
To construct this railway, which was opened in 1839,
before the draining of the Lake of Haarlem, it was
necessary to sink fagot upon fagot, pile upon pile,
to heap up stone and sand, and form an artificial
isthmus across the marshes — in a word, to make
the ground over which the railway was to pass. It
was a difficult and costly work, which even now re-
quires continual care and expenditure. This tongue
of land narrows as it nears Halfweg, the only station
between Haarlem and Amsterdam. Here the waters
of the Y7 and the bottom of the drained lake are
divided by colossal locks, upon which depends the
existence of a large part of Southern Holland. If
these locks were to open, the city of Amsterdam,
hundreds of villages, all the old lake, and fifty kilo-
metres of country would be overflowed and destroyed
by the waters. The draining of the Lake of Haar-
lem has diminished this danger, but has not removed

AMSTERDAM. 63

it ; hence a special division of the so-called Adminis-
tration of the Waters is established at Halfweg, to
guard this Thermopylae of Holland, with its eye
upon the enemy and its hand on the sword.

After passing Halfweg station, one sees to the left,
beyond the bay of the Y, a confused movement
which seems like the masts of innumerable ships
beaten about in a storm, that seem to be rising and
falling on the sea. They are in reality the arms of
hundreds of windmills partly hidden by the dykes,
which extend along the banks of Northern Holland
in the suburbs of Zaandam and opposite Amsterdam.
Shortly afterward Amsterdam comes into view. At
the first sight of this city, even if one has seen all
the other Dutch towns, one cannot restrain a gesture
of surprise. One beholds a forest of very high
windmills shaped like large towers, steeples, light-
houses, pyramids, broken cones, aerial houses, which
swino- their enormous cruciform arms and revolve in
confusion above the roofs and cupolas like a cloud
of enormous birds beating their wings over the town.
In the midst of these windmills are seen innumer-
able workshops, towers, masts, steeples of fantastic
architecture, roofs of quaint buildings, pinnacles,
peaks, and unknown forms, and in the distance the
arms of more windmills, packed closely together,
and seeming like a vast network suspended in mid-
air. The whole town is black, the sky lowering and
restless — a grand, confused spectacle, which makes

64 AMSTERDAM.

one's entry into Amsterdam a moment of keen curi-
osity.

It is difficult to describe the first impression which
this city makes upon one who has passed through
some of its streets. It seems to be an immense, un-
tidy city — a Venice grown large and ugly ; a Dutch
city ; yes, but seen through a magnifying-glass that
makes its seem three times its natural size ; the cap-
ital of an imaginary Holland of fifty millions of in-
habitants, an ancient metropolis built by a race of
giants on the delta of a boundless river to serve as
port to a fleet of ten thousand vessels — a city ma-
jestic, severe, and almost gloomy, which makes one
feel stupid and reflective.

The city, situated on the bank of the Y, is built
on ninety islands, almost all rectangular, joined
together by about three hundred and fifty bridges.
It forms a perfect semicircle, and is divided by many
canals in concentric arcs, and crossed by other canals,
which converge to a common centre like the threads
of a spider's Aveb. A large watercourse called the
Amstel (which together with the word dam, meaning
dyke, gives Amsterdam its name) cuts the town
into two almost equal parts and empties into the Y.
Nearly all the houses are built on piles, and it is said
that if Amsterdam Avere overturned, it would present
the appearance of a great forest without leaves and
branches. Nearly all the canals are flanked by two
wide streets and two rows of linden trees.

Ube Unner Ibarbor, Hmsterfcam.

+^

AMSTERDAM. 65

This regularity of form, which allows the eye to
see every part gives the city an appearance of won-
derful grandeur. At every street-corner one sees in
a new direction three, four, or even six drawbridges,
some open, some lowered, others swinging around,
which appear to the eye like a succession of doors —
an inextricable confusion of beams and chains, giving
the impression that Amsterdam is composed of hos-
tile factions fortified against each other. Canals as
wide as rivers form coves and large docks here and
there, round which one may walk by passing over
a chain of bridges joined one to another. From
all the crossways there are distant views of other
bridges, canals, ships, and buildings, veiled by a
slight mist which makes the distance appear greater.

The houses are very high in comparison with
those of other Dutch towns. They are black, with
the windows and doors bordered with white. The
gables are pointed or cut in steps, and are decorated
with bas-reliefs representing urns, flowers, and ani-
mals. They are almost all protected in front by
small pillars, balustrades, railings, chains, and iron
bars, and. divided from each other by little walls and
wooden partitions. Inside of these diminutive outer
fortresses, which occupy a large part of the streets,
are tables, flower-stands, chairs, buckets, wheelbar-
rows, baskets, skeletons of old furniture. Hence
when one looks down the streets it seems as though
the inhabitants had put all their furniture outside of

Vol. If. — 5

66 AMSTERDAM.

their bouses and were ready for a universal removal.
Many Louses have basements, to which access is
gained by wooden or stone staircases, and in this
gap between the street and the wall are more flower-
pots and furniture, merchandise exhibited for sale,
people at work — a confused, curious life which buzzes
at the feet of the passers-by.

The principal streets present an unique spectacle.
The canals are covered with ships and barges, and
alono- them on one side are seen mountains cf casks,
packing-boxes, sacks, and bales, and on the other
side a row of splendid shops. Here are groups of
well-dressed men, ladies, maids, peddlers, and shop-
keepers, while opposite is the coarse roving crowd of
sailors, and boatmen with their wives and children.
To the right is heard the lively talk of the towns-
people; to the left, the shrill, slow cries of the seafar-
ing folk. On the one side one smells the sweet scent
of flowers from the window-gardens and the odor of
delicate restaurants ; on the other the reek of tar and
the fumes of poor cookery arising from the sailing
boats. Here a drawbridge is raised to allow a vessel
to pass ; there the people crowd upon a bridge which
is swinging into place ; farther on a raft is carrying
a group of passengers to the other bank of the canal;
at one end of the street a steamer is taking its de-
parture, while from the opposite end a row of loaded
barges is entering. Here a lock is opened, there a
trekschuit glides down the canal; not far away a

AMSTERDAM. G7

windmill is turning, and farther down the piles for a
new house are being driven in. The creaking of the
bridge chains is mingled with the rumble of carts ;
the whistles of steamers break into the chimes of
the bells ; the rigging of the ships gets entangled in
the branches of trees ; a carriage passes close to a
boat ; the shops are reflected in the canals, the sails
are reflected in the windows ; the life of the land
and the life of the sea go on side by side, cross and
recross, and mingle together in a new, merry scene
like a festival of peace and reunion.

On leaving the principal streets for the old parts
of the city the spectacle changes entirely. The
narrowest streets of Toledo, the darkest alleys of
Genoa, the crookedest houses in Rotterdam, are
nothing in comparison to the narrowness, darkness,
and architectural confusion of this part of Amster-
dam. The streets look like cracks opened by an
earthquake. The high dingy houses, half hidden by
the rags huna on cords from window to window, are
so crooked that they alarm the pedestrian. Some
are bent almost double, and seem on the point of
breaking to pieces ; the roofs of others almost touch,
leaving only a streak of light visible between them ;
others bend in opposite directions, resembling an
overturned trapeze, and seem like houses on the
stage at the moment they are carried away to change
the scene. Were they built thus purposely to drain
off the water, or have they become crooked because

68 AMSTERDAM.

the ground has sunk beneath them ? Some hold the
former, others the latter theory, but the greater
number believe both, which seems to me the most
reasonable thing to do. Even in this labyrinth,
Avhere swarms a pale and squalid population to
whom a ray of sunlight is a benediction from God,
one sees flower-pots and looking-glasses and little
curtains at the windows, which indicate that in spite
of poverty the people love their homes.

The most picturesque part of the city is that
enclosed by the curve of the Amstel round the
great square of the new market. There are dark
streets and deserted canals intersecting each other ;
lonely squares surrounded by Avails dripping with
damp ; sooty, mildewed, cracked, mouldering houses
saturated with stagnant, dirty water; large ware-
houses with all their doors and windows shut; boats
and barges abandoned at the end of blind water-
alleys, looking as though they were awaiting some con-
spirator or witch ; heaps of building material which
seem to be the remains of fires or ruins; muddy lanes
and pools covered with weeds. Walls, water, bridges,
■ — all are black and gloomy ; and as one passes for
the first time, one feels an unrest as though some
misfortune were threatening.

Those who love contrast need only go from this
part of the city to the square called The Dam, where
the principal streets converge. Here are the Royal
Falace, the Exchange, the New Church, and the

AMSTERDAM. GO

monument of the Metal Cross, erected in commem-
oration of the war of 1830. Here too is an immense
continual movement of dense crowds of people and
carriages, calling to mind Trafalgar Square in Lon-
don, the Porta del Sol in Madrid, and the Place do
la Madeleine in Paris. Standing an hour in this
centre, one may enjoy the most varied scene to be
found in Holland. One sees the florid, petulant
faces of the patrician merchants, visages bronzed by
the sun of the colonies, strangers of every shade of
complexion, cicerones, organ-grinders, messengers of
death with their long black veils, servants in white
caps, the many-colored waistcoats of the fishermen
from the Zuyder Zee, women from the North of
Holland with earrings like the winkers on horses'
liridles, the silver diadems of Friesland, gilded hel-
mets from Groningen, the yellow shirts of the peat-
diggers, orphans from the asylum with their parti-col-
ored red and black petticoats, the loud dresses of the
inhabitants of the islands, enormous chignons, hats
worthy of the Carnival, wide shoulders, large hips,
and fat stomachs, — the whole procession enveloped
in the smoke of cigars and pipes, while the sound
of German, Dutch, English, French, Flemish, and
Danish words reaches the ear, until one thinks one
has fallen into the valley of Jehoshaphat or at the
foot of the Tower of Babel.

From the Square of the Dam the port is reached
in a few minutes, and this also presents an appear-

70 AMSTERDAM.

ance strange beyond description. At first sight it is
incomprehensible. On every side are dykes, bridges,
locks, piles, and docks that look like a huge fortress
so cunningly built that no one can succeed in under-
standing its plan; and, in fact, without the aid of a
map and a walk of several hours it is impossible to
find one's way. From the centre of the city, at the
distance of a thousand metres from each other, two
great arched dykes branch out in different directions,
and enclose and defend the two extremities of Am-
sterdam from the sea, and the two extremities pro-
ject beyond the semicircle of houses like the two
points of a half moon. These two dykes each have
a large opening provided with a gigantic lock,
enclosing two harbors, capable of holding a thou-
sand large ships, and several small islands on which
are warehouses, arsenals, and manufactories where
numbers of workmen find employment. Between
the two large dykes several smaller ones project.
These are formed of strong palisades, and serve as
an embarking station for steamers. On all these
dykes there are houses, sheds, and storehouses,
around wrhich swarms a crowd of sailors, passengers,
porters, women, boys, carriages, and carts, attracted
thither by the arrivals and departures, which succeed
each other from daybreak until evening;. From the
end of these dykes the view embraces the whole port
— the two forests of ships, bearing flags of a thousand
colors, enclosed in the two great harbors ; the vessels

AMSTERDAM. 71

that arrive from the great Northern Canal and that
enter the Zuyder Zee in full sail ; the barges and
boats that cross each other in all parts of the gulf;
the green coast of North Holland, the hundred wind-
mills of Zaandam, the long row of the first Amster-
dam houses that cut the sky with thousands of black
pinnacles, the innumerable columns of sooty smoke
which rise from the city above the gray horizon;
and when the clouds are in motion a continual,
rapid, marvellous change of color and variety of
light-effects, so that at one moment the country
seems to be the gayest in the world, and the next the
most sombre.

On returning to the city and carefully observing
the buildings, the first thino; that attracts the attcn-
tion is the frequency of steeples. In Amsterdam
there are places of worship for every religion — syn-
agogues, churches of Reformed Calvinists, churches
of the Lutherans who adhere strictly to the Augs-
burg Confession, churches of the Lutherans who
interpret the Augsburg Confession more liberally,
churches of the Expostulators, the Mennonites, the
Walloons, the English Episcopalians, English Pres-
byterinns, Catholics, Greek schismatics; and every
one of these churches raises to heaven a spire that
seems determined to surpass all the others in origin-
ality and oddity. What Victor IIuo-o says of the
Flemish architects, who build steeples by putting an
overturned salad bowl on a judge's cap, a sugar-basin

72 AMSTERDAM.

on a salt-cellar, a bottle on the sugar-basin and a
chalice on the bottle, may in great part be applied
to the steeples of Amsterdam. Some are formed of
kiosks and little churches put one on the top of
another; others of a number of little towers that
seem to have been pulled out of each other in such
a way that if a blow were to be given to the highest,
the whole steeple would fold up like a spy-glass;
others are as slender as minarets, and are built
almost entirely of iron, which is ornamented, gilded,
perforated, and transparent ; others are decorated
from the middle upward with terraces, balustrades,
arches, and columns ; nearly all are surmounted by
globes or crowns of iron in the shape of a bulb, on
which are placed other crowns that hold balls and
Hag-staffs, to which some other objects are fastened,
and perhaps these are not even the last, — the whole
exactly resembling the little towers children make
by putting all the trifles they can get one on the
top of another.

Among the few monumental edifices is the Royal
Palace, the first of the Dutch palaces, built between
1648 and 1G55, on thirteen thousand six hun-
dred and fifty-nine piles. It is grand, massive, and
gloomy. Its greatest ornament is a ball-room said
to be the largest in Europe, and its greatest defect
is that it has no great entrance-door, for which reason
it is generally called the house without a door. On
the other hand, the Exchange, which is opposite,

AMSTERDAM. 73

with a foundation of thirty-four thousand piles, has
nothing noteworthy excepting a peristyle of seven-
teen columns, and hence is called the door without a
house — a joke that every Dutchman makes a point
of repeating to strangers, with an imperceptible
smile hovering at the corners of his mouth. Those
who arrive in Amsterdam during the first week of
the Kermesse, which is 'the Dutch Carnival, can see
a curious spectacle in this building. For seven days,
during the dull hours of business, the Exchange is
open to all the boys of the town, who rush in, mak-
ing an infernal noise with fifes, drums, and shouts
— a liberty which, according to the tradition, was
granted by the municipality in honor of some boys
who in the time of the War of Independence were
playing near the old Exchange, and, discovering
that the Spanish were preparing to blow up the
building with a ship full of gunpowder, ran to tell
the townspeople, thus frustrating the designs of the
enemy. Besides the Royal Palace and the Ex-
change, the Palace of Industry is a fine ornament
to Amsterdam. It is built of glass and iron, sur-
mounted by a very light cupola, which, from a dis-
tance when the sun strikes it, has the appearance
of a large mosque. As historical monuments the old
towers on the bank of the port also deserve notice.

Among these towers is one called " The Tower of
the Corner of Weepers" or "The Tower of Tears,"
because in former times Dutch sailors embarked from

74 AMSTERDAM.

it on long voyages, and their families came there to hid
them farewell and sobbed as they departed. Above
the door is a rough bas-relief bearing the date 1569.
It represents the port, a ship leaving the shore, and
a woman weeping. It was placed there in memory
of a sailor's wife who died of grief at parting from
her husband.

Almost all the strangers who visit the tower,
after looking at the bas-relief and at the guide-book
which tells the tale, turn to the sea to search for
the departing vessel, and remain in thought for a
time. What are they thinking ? Perhaps the same
thoughts that passed through my mind. They follow
that ship into the Arctic Ocean, to the whale-fisher-
ies, or in search of a new passage to India, and the
tremendous epic of the Dutch sailor in the midst of
the horrors of the Polar regions flashes across their
mind like a vision. They think of seas blocked
with ice, cold that causes the skin to fall in shreds
from hands and face, polar bears which rush upon
the sailors and break the weapons with their teeth,
walruses in furious droves which overturn the boats,
the blocks of ice whirled around by waves and wind,
and the vast treacherous plains of floating ice which
imprisons and crushes the ships; the deserted isl-
ands covered with the bodies of the sailors, with
the wrecks of vessels, with leathern bands gnawed
by famished mariners in the throes of death. Then
the whales that crowd round the ship, the fearful

Cbe Uower ot Uears, Bmster&am,

AMSTERDAM. 75

contortions of the wounded monsters in the blood-
stained water, the boats overturned at a single blow,
the shipwrecked sailors wandering half-naked in the
fog and darkness, the huts cut in the ice, and the
sleep which ends in death. Then, again, infinite
solitudes white and shrouded in mist, where no sound
is heard save the splash of oars, echoed by the cav-
erns and the weird cry of the seals ; then other
deserts without a sign of life — measureless mountains
of ice, boundless tracts of unknown country, eternal
snow, eternal winter, the awful solemnity of the
polar night, the infinite silence which terrifies the
soul, the famished, emaciated, delirious seamen, who
kneel on the deck and raise their clasped hands
to the horizon flaring with the aurora borealis, pray-
ing God that they may once more see the sun and
their fatherland. Scientists, merchants, poets, all
bow before that humble vanguard who with their
skeletons have marked out the first pathway on the
immaculate snow of the North Pole.

Turning to the right from this tower and continu-
ing to walk around the harbor, one arrives at the
riantaadije, a vast quarter formed of two islands
connected by many bridges, in which is a park, a
zoological garden, and a botanical garden, forming
a wide, green, merry oasis in the midst of the livid
waters and gloomy houses. This is the place for
concerts and evening festivals; here comes the flower
of Amsterdam's beauty — a flower which, fortunately

76 AMSTERDAM.

for susceptible travellers, sheds a mild perfume
which does not intoxicate. From this peril, how-
ever, there is no safer refuge than the Zoological
Garden, which is the property of a company of fif-
teen thousand members. It is the most beautiful
zoological garden in Holland, where there are many
fine gardens, and is one of the richest in Europe.
The enormous salamanders from Japan, the boa-con-
strictors from Java, and the Bradypi didactyli from
Surinam quickly dispel the images of the pale faces
and blue eyes of the beautiful Calvinists.

Leaving the Plantaadije, by crossing several bridges
and passing along several canals one arrives at the
great square of the Boter Markt, where stands a
gigantic statue of Rembrandt near the Italian con-
sulate. This square leads to the Jewish quarter,
which is one of the marvels of Amsterdam.

I asked the courteous consul the way to this part
of the city, and he answered:

" Walk straight along until you find a portion of
the town infinitely dirtier than any you have hither-
to considered the ne plus ultra of filth: that is the
ghetto; you cannot mistake it."

It may be imagined with what expectations I
walked on. I passed a synagogue, and stopped a
moment at a crossing, then I turned down the nar-
rowest street, and in a moment recognized the ghetto.
My expectations were more than realized.

It was a labyrinth of narrow streets, foul and

AMSTERDAM. 77

dark, -with very old houses on either side, which
seemed as though they would crumble to pieces if
one kicked the walls. From cords strung from win-
dow to window, from the window-sills, from nails
driven into the doors, dangled and fluttered tattered
skirts, patched petticoats, greasy clothes, dirty sheets,
and ragged trousers, flapping against the damp walls.
In front of the doors, on the broken steps, in the
midst of tottering railings, old goods were exposed
for sale. Broken furniture, fragments of weapons,
objects of devotion, shreds of uniforms, parts of
machinery, splinters of toys, iron tools, broken china,
fringes, rags, things that have no name in any lan-
guage ; everything that has been ruined or destroyed
by rust, worms, fire, disorder, dissipation, disease,
poverty, death; all those things that servants sweep
away, rag-merchants throw away, beggars trample
under foot, and animals neglect ; all that encumbers,
smells, disgusts, contaminates, — all this is to be found
there in heaps and layers destined for a mysterious
commerce, for unforeseen combinations, and for in-
credible transformations. In the midst of this ceme-
tery of things, this Babjdon of uncleanness, swarms
a sickly, wretched, filthy race, beside which the gyp-
sies of Albaycin in Granada are clean and sweet.
As in other lands, so here too they have borrowed
from the people among whom they live the coloring
of their skin and hair, but they have preserved the
hooked nose, the pointed chin, the curly hair, and

73 AMSTERDAM.

all the features of the Semitic race. No words can
give an adequate idea of these people. Hair through
■which no comb has ever passed, eyes which make
one shudder, figures thin and ghastly as corpses,
ugliness that is revolting, old men and women who
seem hardly human, wrapped as they are in all man-
ner of clothes without color or form, so that it is
impossible to know to what sex they belong, stretch-
ing out trembling, skeleton hands which look like
locusts and spielers. Everything is done in the mid-
dle of the street. The women fry fish on small
stoves, the girls lull the babies to sleep, the men
fumble among their old rags, the half-naked children
roll on the pavement, which is littered with decaying
vegetables and dirty remains of fish ; decrepit old
women, seated on the ground, scratch their itching,
filthy bodies with their fierce nails, revealing with
the disregard of animals worn-out rags and limbs
from which the eye turns with loathing. I picked
my way for a long distance on tiptoe, covering my
nose now and then, and taking care to turn my eyes
from those things which I could not bear to see, and
when at last I reached the banks of a wide canal in
an open, clean place, it seemed to me that I had come
upon a terrestrial paradise, and it was delightful to
breathe the air impregnated with tar.

In Amsterdam, as in all the other Dutch cities,
there are many private societies, some of which have

AMSTERDAM. 79

all the importance of large national institutions.
The principal one is the Society of Public Utility,
founded in 1784, Avhich is almost a second govern-
ment for Holland. Its object is to educate the peo-
ple, and to this end it provides elementary books,
public lectures, mechanics' libraries, primary schools,
training-schools, singing-schools, asylums, savings
banks, prizes for good conduct, rewards for acts of
valor and self-denial. The society, which is ruled by
an administrative council composed of ten directors
and a secretary, comprises more than fifteen thousand
members, divided into three hundred groups, which
in their turn form the same number of independent
societies that are scattered through all the towns,
villages, and small communities of the state. Every
member pays a little more than ten francs a year.
With the sum that this tax produces, small indeed in
comparison to the great extent of the institution, the
society exercises, as the Dutch say, a sort of anon-
ymous magistracy over social customs, unites all re-
ligious sects by the tie of impartial beneficence, and
with open hand spreads instruction, help, and comfort
over the whole country. As the society arose inde-
pendently, so it works and proceeds, faithful to the
Dutch principle that the tree of charity must grow
without grafting or supports. Other societies, such as
the Arti et Aviicitice, the Felix Meritis, the Doctrina
et Amicitia, have as their object the promotion of art
and science; they encourage public exhibitions, com-

80 AMSTERDAM.

petitions, and lectures, and are at the same time splen-
did places of meeting, being provided with excellent
libraries and with all the great journals of Europe.

A book might be written on the charitable institu-
tions in Amsterdam alone. The remark of Louis
XIV. to Charles II. of England when he was pre-
paring to invade Holland is well known : " Do not
fear for Amsterdam ; I am perfectly sure that Provi-
dence Avill save it, if only in consideration of its
charity toward the poor." There every human mis-
fortune finds an asylum and a remedy. Especially
admirable is the orphan asylum of the citizens of
Amsterdam, Avhich had the honor of sheltering the
immortal Van Speyk, who in 1831, on the waters of
the Scheldt, saved the honor of the Dutch flag at
the cost of his life. These orphans wear a very
curious dress, partly red and partly black, so that
on one side they seem dressed for a carnival, and on
the other for a funeral. This strange style of dress
was chosen in order that the orphans should be re-
cognized by the tavern-keepers, who are forbidden
to allow them to enter, and by the railway emploves,
who must not allow them to travel without permis-
sion of the directors; these ends, however, might
surely have been attained without such a ridiculous
uniform. These bicolored orphans are seen every-
where ; bright, clean, and polite, they cheer one's
heart. At all public fetes they occupy the front
place; in all solemn ceremonies their song is heard;

AMSTERDAM. 81

the first stone laid for national monuments is placed
by their hands ; and the people love and honor them.
To make an end of speaking of institutions, the
special industries of Amsterdam, such as the refining
of borax and camphor and the manufacture of enamel,
ought not to be omitted, but it will be best to leave
these things to the travellers of the future who wish
to write encyclopaedias. The art of polishing dia-
monds however, deserves notice. This is the prin-
cipal industry of the city, and was for a long time
a secret known in Europe only to the Jews of Ant-
werp and Amsterdam. The trade is still confined
almost entirely to the circumcised. This industry
year by year reaches the sum of a hundred million
francs, and provides more than ten thousand persons
with a livelihood. One of the finest workshops is
on the Zwanenburgerstraat, in which the workmen
themselves explain to visitors in French how the
diamonds are cut and subjected to a first and second
polishing. The work is done under the eyes of the
visitors in the pleasantest manner and with admirable
skill. It is beautiful to see those humble pebbles,
looking like fragments of dirty gum arabic, which
if one found them at home would be thrown out
of the window with cigar-ends, in a few minutes
transformed, burning and animated with a glancing,
brilliant life, as though they understood the destiny
that has dragged them from the entrails of the earth
to serve the pomps of the world. Of how many
Vol. II.— 6

82 AMSTERDAM.

strange scenes will that little stone which the work-
man holds between the fingers of his iron glove be
the witness or the cause ! Perhaps it will gleam on
the forehead of a queen, who some night will leave
it in her casket while she escapes from the crowd
who have broken down the palace doors. If it falls
into the hands of a Communist, it may glitter some
day on the table at a law-court next to a dagger
stained with blood. It may pass through the revelry
of nuptial feasts, of banquets and dances, and then
be spirited through the door of a pawn-shop or
through the window of a carriage attacked by
thieves, and may pass from hand to hand, from
country to country, to glitter on the finger of a
princess in a box at the opera at St. Petersburg.
Thence it may go to add another sparkle to the
sword of a pasha in Asia Minor, and then to tempt
the virtue of some milliner of sixteen in the Quartier
St. Antoine in Paris, and finally — who knows ? — it
may ornament the watch of some great-grand-niece
of the one who first introduced it to the honors of
the world, for among these workmen some save
enough to leave a small fortune to their descendants.
Some years ago one might have seen at the workshop
on Zwanenburgerstraat the old Jew who cut the fa-
mous Kohinoor, which, besides winning the medal of
honor at the Paris Exhibition, brought to him a gift
of ten thousand florins and a royal gift from the Queen
of England.

AMSTERDAM. 83

At Amsterdam there is the finest picture-gallery in
Holland.

A stranger who goes there prepared to admire the
two greatest masterpieces of Dutch painting need
not ask where they are. As soon as he passes the
threshold he sees a little room filled with silent, rapt
spectators. He enters and finds himself in the in-
most sacred recess of the temple. To the right is
the "Night Watch" by Rembrandt, to the left the
"Banquet of the National Guards" by Van der
Heist.

After seeing these two pictures again and again,
I often amused myself by observing those who came
into that room for the first time. Nearly all, as soon
as they entered, stopped, looked round them with a
stupefied air, and then turned to the right. It is
Rembrandt who conquers.

The "Night Watch" — or, as others call it, the
" Turning Out of the Arquebusiers " or " Banning
Cocq's Company" — the largest canvas painted by
Rembrandt, is more than a picture; it is a pageant,
an amazing spectacle. All French critics have used
the same phrase to express the effect it produces —
" e'est ecrasant." It is a great mass of moving
human figures, a bright light and profound darkness.
At the first glance one sees only this, and for some
moments one does not know where to turn one's eyes
to comprehend the grand and splendid confusion.
There are officers, halberdiers, boys running, arque-

84 AMSTERDAM.

busiers loading and firing, young men beating drums,
people bending, shouting, screaming, gesticulating, —
all dressed in different costumes, with round and
pointed hats, plumes, helmets, casques, iron gorgets,
linen ruffs, waistcoats embroidered in gold, high
boots, stockings of every hue, arms of every shape ;
a disordered, tumultuous, glittering crowd that stands
out from the dark background of the picture and
seems to advance toward the spectator. The two
foremost figures are Frans Banning Cocq, Lord of
Purmerend and Ilpendam, captain of the company,
and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruitenberg, Lord of
Ylaardingen, Avalking side by side. The only two
figures in full light are this lieutenant, dressed in a
jacket of buffalo skin with gold ornaments, a scarf,
ruff, white plume, and high boots, and a little girl
who comes behind him dressed in a yellow satin
dress with her fair hair adorned with pearls. All the
other personages are in darkness or shadow, except-
ing their heads, which are all illuminated. By what
light ? This is the enigma. Is it the light of the
sun or the moon, or is it from the torches ? Flashes
of gold and silver, lunar reflections, fiery lights, peo-
ple who, like the fair-haired girl, seem to shine by
their own light; faces illuminated by the flames of a
fire, dazzling scintillations, shadows, gloom, and sub-
terranean darkness, all are to be found in this picture
harmonized and contrasted with miraculous boldness
and unsurpassed art. Are there any discords of

AMSTERDAM. 85

light? Is there needless obscurity? Details irrele-
vant to the scene ? Vague grotesque forms ? Un-
justified eccentricities and omissions? All this has
been said against the picture. It has been criticised
-with blind enthusiasm and ruthless censure, lauded
to the skies as one of the wonders of the world,
deemed unworthy of Rembrandt, discussed, explained
in a thousand ways. But, notwithstanding all cen-
sure, defects, and conflicting interpretations, it has
hung there for two centuries triumphant and glorious,
and the more one looks at it the more it glows and
lives, and, even if seen hastily, it remains for ever
impressed on the memory with all its splendor and
mystery, like a wonderful vision.

The picture by Van der Heist (a painter of whom
nothing is known excepting that he was born at
Amsterdam at the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury, and passed the greater part of his life there)
represents a banquet given by the Civic Guard of
Amsterdam to celebrate the Peace of Miinster on
the 18th of June, 1G48. The picture contains
twenty-five life-sized figures, all faithful portraits
of notable personages, whose names are preserved.
Officers, sergeants, flag-bearers, and guards are
grouped round a table, shaking hands, drinking
toasts, and talking : some are carving, some eating,
some peeling oranges, some pouring out wine. Rem-
brandt's picture is a fantastic apparition ; Van der
Heist's is a mirror which reflects a real scene.

$6 AMSTERDAM.

There is neither union nor contrast nor mystery;
everything is represented with equal care and pre-
cision. Heads and hands, figures in the foreground
and background, steel cuirasses and lace fringes,
plumed hats and silken banners, silver cornucopias
and gilded goblets, vases, knives, crockery, victuals,
wines, arms, ornaments, — everything stands out,
shines, deceives, delights. The heads, considered
singly, are wonderfully clever portraits, from which
a doctor could understand the temperament and pre-
scribe with certainty. It has been justly said of the
hands that if they were detached from the bodies
and all mixed together, they could be recognized and
returned to each figure without fear of mistake, so
distinct, finished, and individual are they. Face by
face, costume by costume, object by object, the more
one examines them the more one discovers, in the
way of particulars, details, touches, and trifles re-
produced with amazing exactness and fidelity. More
than this, the variety and splendor of coloring, the
cheerfulness and freshness of the faces, the pompous
dress, the thousand glittering objects, all give to the
large picture an air of merry-making and festivity,
which helps one to forget the vulgarity of the subject,
and communicates itself to the spectator, awakening
a feeling of friendly sympathy and admiration which
makes even the most serious face break into a smile.

There is also in the gallery Rembrandt's large
picture of " The Syndics of the Cloth Merchants,"

Uhc ©U> Clotbes ZlDarfeet, Bmsterfcam.

AMSTERDAM. 87

painted nineteen years after the "Night Watch,"
with less youthful impetuosity and less imaginative
eccentricity, hut with all the vigor of mature genius.
It is no less wonderful than the other in the effects of
chiaroscuro, the expression of the figures, strength of
coloring, and exuberance of life. Some even prefer it
to the " Night Watch." There is another picture by
Van der Heist, " The Syndics of the Confraternity of
St. Sebastian at Amsterdam," in which all the mar-
vellous power of the great master is revealed, though
in a somewhat less degree than in " The Banquet."

Steen has eight pictures, among which is his own
portrait, representing him as young and handsome,
with long hair and a quiet meditative air, which
seems to say, " No, strangers, I was not a dissipated
man, a drunkard, a bad husband ; I have been ca-
lumniated; respect my memory." The subjects of
his pictures are a servant cleaning a saucepan, a
peasant family returning home in a boat, a baker
making bread, a family scene, a village wedding, a
feast of children, a charlatan in a square, with the
usual drunkards, the usual convulsive grins, the
usual grotesque figures, marvellously colored and
illumined. In the picture of " The Charlatan,"
especially, his mania for the grotesque reaches the
highest point. The heads are deformed, the faces
are mere bags, the noses are hooks, the backs humps,
the hands paws, the attitudes contortions, the smiles
are grimaces ; in short, they are people whose orig-

88 AMSTERDAM.

inals are to be found only in the glass cases of
anatomical museums or amongst the animal carica-
tures of Grandville. It is impossible to help laugh-
ing, but one laughs as the spectators of Gymplaine
must have laughed, saying in their hearts, " What a
pity he is a monster !"

Yet there was an artist who lowered this style of
art even more than Steen — Adriaen Brouwer, one
of the most famous scapegraces of Holland. He
was the pupil of Franz Hals, and used to get drunk
with him once a day, until, driven by his creditors,
he fled from Amsterdam to Antwerp, where he was
arrested as a spy and thrown into prison, llubens
procured his release and took him into his own house,
but Rubens led a steady life, and Brouwer wished to
lead a dissipated one. Consequently he left Antwerp
and went to Paris, where he continued his riotous
existence until reduced to a skeleton. He then re-
turned to Antwerp, and ended his miserable life in
a hospital, aged thirty-two. As he frequented only
taverns and lived with the rabble, he painted only
disgusting, coarse scenes with low women and
drunken ruffians, whose merit is their lively, har-
monious coloring and their originality. The gallery
at Amsterdam contains two of his pictures, one rep-
resenting "Peasants Fighting," the other a "Village
Revel." The last is a characteristic Brouwer. It
represents a room in a tavern in which drunken men
and women are drinking and smoking. One woman

AMSTERDAM. 89

lies extended on the ground dead drunk, her child
crying by her side.

Here too, in Amsterdam, is the famous picture by
Gerard Dou called " The Night School " or the
"Picture of the Four Candles," one of the choicest
gems of Dutch painting, worthy to be placed next
to his lt Dropsical Woman " in the Louvre. It is
a small picture which represents a schoolmaster
with two pupils and a girl seated near a table;
another girl is directing a little scholar writing
on a slate, while others are studying at the end
of the room. The originality of this picture con-
sists in the fact that the figures are only accessories,
the principals, the protagonists, in a word the sub-
jects of the picture, are four candles — one burning
in a lantern abandoned on the pavement, another
lighting the group of master and pupils, the third
held by the girl and casting its light upon the slate,
the fourth on a table in the background among; the
boys who are reading. It is easy to imagine what
a play of rays, shadows, reflections, Avhat tremulous,
glimmering varieties of light, an artist like Dou was
able to see in those four little flames — what infinite
difficulties he created for himself, what care it re-
quired to overcome them, and with what marvellous
skill they were overcome. This picture, painted, as
a critic said, with the eyelash of "a new-born baby,"
and covered with glass like a relic, was sold in 17GG
for eight thousand francs, and in 1808 for thirty-five

90 AMSTERDAM.

thousand ; and certainly this sum with a cipher added
to it would not be enough to buy it to-day.

If I were to describe only the principal paintings
that adorn these walls, I should never end. The
melancholy, sublime Ruysdael has a winter scene
and a forest "full of his own soul," as critics say of
his landscapes. Ter Borch has his celebrated " Pa-
ternal Counsel ;" Wouverman, ten admirable paintings
of hunting scenes, battles, and horses; Potter, Karel
du Jardin, Van Ostade, Cuyp, Metsu, Van der Werde,
Everdingen, are represented by several of the best
works from their brushes, which it would be useless
to attempt to describe with the pen. Nor is this the
only picture-gallery in Amsterdam. Another, left
to the town by a certain Van der Hoop, a former
member of Parliament, contains almost two hundred
pictures by the greatest Dutch and Flemish painters,
and besides this there are several rich private gal-
leries.

But the gallery which contains the "Night Watch"
and the " Banquet of the Civic Guard" as it is the
first visited, so also is it the last which strangers
revisit to bid farewell to Dutch painting before leav-
ing Amsterdam for North Holland and Friesland,
where there are no galleries. At this moment I
close my eyes and seem to be in the room of the
" Watch " and the "Banquet" on the day when I
went there for the first time. The thought that I
should soon leave, and perhaps never again see these

AMSTERDAM. 91

marvels of human genius, saddened me. Dutch
painting did not arouse in me any profound emotion;
no picture made me weep, no image raised me to the
heights, no artist inspired me with a feeling of lively,
grateful, enthusiastic affection. Yet I feel I have
brought away a treasure from these Dutch galleries.
An entire nation, country, and century has been
engraven on my mind. Furthermore, be it illusion
or reality, all those pictures of quiet housekeepers,
of happy old men, of chubby children, of healthy,
fresh girls, of quiet, tidy rooms, and well-spread
tables, when I recall them before my eyes make me
happier in the four walls of my own little room ; I
curl myself up in my corner with greater pleasure,
and am more content than ever to live a family life,
to have sisters and nieces. I bless my hearth more
affectionately, and seat myself in serene contentment
at the frugal table of my home. Is it not better,
perhaps, after one has seen angels, divine women,
superhuman loves, great calamities and glorious
triumphs, after being horrified, after weeping, ador-
ing, and dreaming, after letting our thoughts and
affections soar among the clouds, — is it not well, I
say, to descend a little to earth and persuade our-
selves that there all is not to be despised, that we
must know when and where to cast troubles out of
window, that this world is not so bad as it is said to
be, that it is better to live the life that God has
given to us, that we be neither visionary, turbu-

92 AMSTERDAM.

lent, proud, improvident, nor mad? Dutch paint-
ing has persuaded my mind of this, therefore blessed
be Dutch painting. Anatomical students, national
guards, arquebusiers, mayors, servants, fishermen,
drunkards, bulls, sheep, tulips, windmills, livid seas
and misty horizons, may you dwell long before my
eyes, and when in my mind you become only con-
fused memories may I still hold to the virtues of
industry and of living with justice and economy, like
a good Dutchman, so that with God's permission I
shall be able to return to see you again.

Napoleon the Great was bored in Amsterdam, but
I firmly believe it was his own fault. I amused my-
self. All those canals, bridges, harbors, and islands
form such a variety of picturesque views that, however
much one may roam, one never sees them all. There
are innumerable ways of passing the time pleasantly.
One may go to see the milk-boats arrive from Utrecht;
one may follow the barges that are carrying furni-
ture from one house to another, with the white capped
maid-servants standing on the deck; one may pass
half an hour on the tower of the Royal Palace, where
the eye embraces the Gulf of the Y, the ancient
Lake of Haarlem, the towers of Utrecht, the red
roofs of Zaandam, and that fantastic forest of masts,
steeples, and windmills ; one may look on at the
dredging of the mud from the canals, — at the repair-
ing of bridges and locks, — at the thousand attentions

AMSTERDAM. 93

required by this singular town, which is obliged to
spend four hundred thousand florins a year to rule
its waters ; and when there is nothing else worth
seeing there remains the spectacle of the servants
for ever washing the streets, the house doors, the
first-floor windows, and the clothes of passers-by
with pumps and squirts. Afterward, in the evening,
there is the Kalverstraat, lined on either side with a
row of splendid shops and coffee-houses, half of which
are illuminated, half shrouded in darkness, past
which up to a late hour swarms a slow, dense crowd
of people, full of beer and money, mixed with cer-
tain facsimiles of cocottes in groups of threes and
fours, who walk about stiffly, very much dressed up,
neither looking at any one, nor laughing, nor speak-
ing, as though they were meditating some aggression.
A few steps brings one from the lighted, crowded
streets to the borders of the dark canals, araonc the
motionless ships, in the midst of a profound silence.
Passing over a bridge, one arrives in the district
where live the lowest classes. Here one may see
lights glimmering from subterranean shops and hear
the music of the sailors' balls. Thus every moment
there is a change of scene and thought, with all due
deference to Napoleon I.

Such is this famous city, whose history is no less
strange than its form and appearance. A poor
fishing village, whose name was unknown at the cud
of the eleventh century, became in the seventeenth

94 AMSTERDAM.

the grain emporium of the whole of Northern Europe,
depopulated the nourishing ports of the Zuyder Zee,
and gathered into its hands the commerce of Venice,
Seville, Lisbon, Antwerp, and Bruges, attracted mer-
chants from all countries, sheltered refugees of every
faith, revived after frightful inundations, defended
itself from the Anabaptists, frustrated the plots of
Leicester, dictated laws to William II., repulsed the
invasion of Louis XIV., and at last, like everything
in this world, declined, but shone once more with an
ephemeral light as the third city of the French Em-
pire— an official honor which was much like the
decorations given to discontented employes to com-
pensate them for ruinous removals. It is still a rich,
commercial town, but is cautious, slow, and conser-
vative of its traditions ; it prefers speculating on the
Stock Exchange to undertaking bold enterprises,
and competes with its more youthful and hopeful
rivals, Hamburg and Rotterdam, by grumbling rather
than by working. Notwithstanding, Amsterdam still
preserves the majesty of her ancient dignity as con-
queror of the seas, she is still the loveliest gem of
the United Provinces, and the stranger who departs
from her departs with an impression of severity,
grandeur, and power which no other capital in Europe
is capable of effacing.

UTRECHT.

UTRECHT.

From Amsterdam it is usual to make an excursion
to the famous town of Utrecht, whose name we have
so often pronounced as children, trying to stamp the
date 1713 on our brains when preparing for history
examinations. One goes to Utrecht — which in itself
offers nothing extraordinary to those who have seen
other Dutch cities — not so much from curiosity as to
be able in future to refer to the places one has seen
when recalling the famous events that occurred within
its walls. One goes to breathe the air of the town,
where the most solemn act in Dutch history was
completed, the alliance of the Netherland Provinces
against Philip II., where the treaty was signed which
restored peace to Europe after the dreadful wars of
the Spanish Succession, where the innocent head of
the octogenarian Van Diemen fell under the axe of
the Duke of Alva, where the memories of St. Boni-
face, Adrian VI., Charles V., and Louis XIV. are
still alive and eloquent, and the warlike fury of
the ancient bishops still burns in the blood of the
orthodox Calvinists and ultramontane Catholics.

On leaving Amsterdam the road passes near the
Vol. II.— 7 97

98 UTRECHT.

Diemermccr, the deepest polder (the name given by
the Dutch to the drained land) in Holland ; then
runs along a branch of the Rhine called the Vecht,
and, passing by villas and kitchen-gardens, reaches
the town of Utrecht, situated in the midst of a most
fertile country, watered by the Rhine, threaded by
canals, and dotted with gardens and cottages.

Utrecht, like Leyden, has the sad, solemn appear-
ance of a city fallen into decay — vast deserted squares,
broad silent streets, and wide canals in which houses
of primitive form and gloomy color are reflected.
But there is one novelty for the stranger. Like the
Arno in Florence and the Seine at Paris, the canals
are deeply sunk between the streets on either side,
and below the street-level are workshops, and offices,
stores, and humble abodes that have their doors on
the water and the street for a roof. The town is en-
circled by wide avenues, and contains a famous prom-
enade which Louis XV. generously preserved from
the vandalism of his soldiers, a street half a French
league in length, shaded by eight rows of beautiful
linden trees.

The history of Utrecht is in great part identical
with the history of its cathedral, which has perhaps
undergone more transformations than all the other
churches in Holland. It was founded about 720 by
a bishop of Utrecht; was entirely rebuilt by another
bishop toward the middle of the thirteenth century ;
on August 1, 1G74, a hurricane carried away one

©n tbe ©lb Canal, Itltrecbt.

UTRECHT. 99

great nave, which was never rebuilt ; the iconoclasts
laid it waste in the sixteenth century ; the French
Catholics restored it the following century ; and after
the invasion of Louis XIV. the Dutch re-established
the Protestant faith in its walls : in short, its statues,
altars, and crosses have entered and quitted it, have
been raised and cast down, venerated or despised,
according to every change of the wind of doctrine.
Formerly it was without doubt one of the largest
and most beautiful churches in Holland; now it is
bare and disfigured, and greatly encumbered by
benches, which give it the appearance of a Chamber
of Deputies. The hurricane of 1674, by destroying
a nave, separated the church from its lofty tower,
from which through the telescope can be seen almost
all the provinces of Holland, part of Gelderland and
Brabant, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Bois-le-Duc, Leek,
and the Gulf of the Zuyder Zee, while a clock
furnished with forty-two bells flings upon the air at
the stroke of the hours the amorous song of Count
Almaviva or the prayer of the Lombard crusaders.

Near the church is the celebrated university,
founded in 1636, which still gives life to the town,
although, like that of Leydcn, it has lost its former
importance. The University of Leydcn has a dis-
tinct literary and scientific character; the Univer-
sity of Utrecht has a religious character, which it
both communicates to and receives from the town,
the seat of orthodox Protestantism. For this rea-

100 UTRECHT.

son it is said that in the streets of Utrecht one
still sees the pale attenuated Puritan countenances
that have disappeared elsewhere, which seem like the
shadows cast by earlier times. The people have more
serious faces than the citizens of other towns : the
ladies affect an austere manner, and even among the
students there is a certain air of a meditative peni-
tent life, which, however, does riot exclude beer,
fetes, uproars, and evil habits. Besides being the
seat of orthodoxy, Utrecht is still one of the strongest
citadels of Catholicism, which is professed by twenty-
two thousand of the citizens, and no one can have
forgotten the tempest that broke out in Holland
when the pope wished to re-establish the former
bishopric in that city — a tempest which reawakened
the sleeping rancor between Protestants and Catholics
and overthrew the ministry of the famous Torbecke,
the little Cavour of the United Provinces.

But in the matter of religion Utrecht possesses a
peculiar treasure, a curious archaeological relic wTorthy
a museum — namely, the principal seat of the Jansenist
sect, which is no longer an established Church except
in the Low Countries, where it still counts thirty
communities and some thousands of adherents. The
church, which is decorated with the simple inscription
Deo, rises in the midst of a group of houses disposed
in the form of a cloister, joined by small courtyards
and shaded by fruit trees, and in that silent sad re-
treat, to which many years ago there was but one

UTRECHT. 101

entrance, which was closed at night like the door of
a fortress, languishes the decrepit doctrine of Jansen
and his last followers. Even now the name of every
newly-nominated bishop is duly announced to the
pope, who invariably answers with a bull of ex-
communication, which is read from the pulpit, then
buried and forgotten. So this little Port-Royal,
which already feels the chill and solitude of the tomb,
prolongs its last resistance to death.

The only noteworthy institutions Utrecht contains
are the mint and the school for native and colonial
military doctors. The ancient manufactories of that
beautiful velvet so long famous in Europe have dis-
appeared. With the exception of the cathedral
there are no monuments. The Municipal Palace,
which preserves some old keys and some ancient
banners, as well as the table on which the Peace of
Utrecht was signed, was built as late as 1830. The
Royal Palace, which I did not see, must be the most
modest of royal palaces, as the Dutch guides, who
never overlook anything, did not drag me to it.

But this palace, if tradition tells the truth, wit-
nessed an amusing adventure which befell Napoleon
the Great. During his very brief sojourn in Utrecht
he occupied the bed-room of his brother Louis, which
was next to the bath-room. It is known that wher-
ever ho went he took a man-servant with him, whose
exclusive duty it was to have a bath in readiness for
him at any hour of the night or day. The evening

102 UTRECHT.

he arrived at Utrecht, in a bad temper as usual
whenever he was in Holland, he went to bed early,
leaving his bed-room door open, tradition does not
say whether on purpose or by accident. The bath-
servant, a good-natured Breton, after he had pre-
pared the bath in another room, went to bed too
in a bed-room not far from the imperial chamber.
Toward midnight he was awakened suddenly by
pains, jumped out of bed, and very sleepily began
to feel for the door. He found it, but, unfortunately,
not being familiar with the house, instead of going
where he wished to go, he stopped opposite the em-
peror's door. He pushed, the door yielded, and enter-
ing he tipped over a large chair. A terrible voice —
that voice — cried, " Who is there?" The poor }Toung
man, frozen with fear, tried to answer, but the Avords
died on his lips ; he tried to go out by the way he
came in, but could not find the door; horrified,
trembling, he tried to find another door. "Who are
you ?" thundered the emperor, jumping to his feet.
The servant, now beside himself, ran round the room
groping his way, tumbled against a table, and over-
turned another chair. Then Napoleon, confident of
some treachery, seized his large silver watch, rushed
at the unhappy wretch, clutched him by the throat,
and, crying for help with all his might, rained blows
on his head. Servants, chamberlains, aides-de-camp,
the prefect of the palace, rushed in with swords and
lights, and found the great Napoleon and the poor

UTRECHT. 103

servant, both in their night-shirts, amid a terrible
confusion, looking at each other, the one perfectly
amazed, the other in meek supplication as in a panto-
mime. The report of the event spread in Holland
and over the whole of Europe. As usual, it changed
as it passed from mouth to mouth ; people talked of
an assassination, a conspiracy, a successful murder,
of Napoleon buried, of the universe turned topsy-
turvy, while the cause of all the hubbub was the bad
dinner eaten by a man-servant.

But the prince who left most records in Utrecht
was Louis XIV. The French say you go to Utrecht
to see the reverse side of the Great King's medal.
This reverse side is the war of 1670, during which
he made a long stay in that town.

On the reverse side of Louis XIV. 's medal is
written one of the most glorious and poetic pages of
the history of Holland.

France and England made an alliance to conquer
Holland. For what reason ? Well, there was no
reason. When the States General demanded an
explanation, the ministers of the King of France
answered, alleging newspaper impertinence and a
medal coined in Holland with an inscription irreve-
rent to Louis XIV. The King of England, on his
part, gave as a pretext a picture in which some
English vessels were represented as captured and
burned, and stated that the Netherland fleet had not
saluted an English ship. They spent fifty million

104 UTRECHT.

francs in preparations for the war. France put to
sea a fleet of thirty ships armed with cannon,
England a fleet of a hundred sailing; vessels. The
French army, of a hundred thousand disciplined vet-
eran soldiers, accompanied by formidable artillery,
was joined by the army of the Bishop of Munster
and the Elector of Cologne, in all twenty thousand
men. The names of the generals were Conde, Tu-
renne, Vauban, and Luxembourg : the minister Lou-
vois presided over the staff; the historian Pellisson
followed to write the heroic exploits; Louis XIV.,
the greatest king of the century, accompanied the
army surrounded by his splendid court, escorted like
an Asiatic monarch by a phalanx of noblemen, cadets,
plumed, silvered, and gilded Swiss. All this power
and grandeur, which was enough to crush an im-
mense empire, threatened a little country abandoned
by all, defended only by twenty-five thousand soldiers
and by a prince twenty-two years of age, unprovided
with the tools of war, torn by factions, infested by
traitors and spies. "War was declared, the splendid
army of the Great King began its triumphal march,
Europe looked on. Louis XIV., at the head of an
army of thirty thousand soldiers commanded by
Turenne, scattered money and favors along the road,
which opened before him as though he were a deity.
Four cities fell into his hands at one swoop. All
the fortresses of the Rhine and Yssel fell. At the
sight of the pompous royal vanguard the enemy van-

UTRECHT. 105

ished. The invading army passed the Rhine with-
out meeting with resistance, and this passage was
celebrated as a -wonderful event by the army, in
Paris, and in all the French towns. Doesburgh,
Zutphen, Arnhcm, Nosenburg, Nimeguen, Schenk,
and Bommel fell. Utrecht sent the keys of its
gates to the conquering king. Every hour, night
and day, brought the news of a fresh triumph. The
provinces of Gelderland and Overyssel submitted.
Naarden, near to Amsterdam, was taken. Four
French cavaliers advanced as far as the gates of
Muiden, two miles from the capital. The country
was a prey to desolation. Amsterdam was preparing
to open its doors to the invaders : the States General
sent four deputies to ask mercy from the king. To
such a state was reduced the republic which was
once the ruler of monarchs. The deputies arrived
at the enemy's camp, but the king would not admit
them to his presence, and Louvois received them
with scorn. Finally the conditions of peace were
intimated to them. Holland was to cede all the
provinces beyond the Rhine and all the roads by sea
or land by which the enemy could penetrate into the
heart of the country; she was to pay twenty million
francs, embrace the Catholic faith, and send the
King of France a gold medal every year, on which
which was to be engraved that Holland owed her
liberty to Louis XIV., and must accept the conditions
imposed by the King of England and the Princes of

106 UTRECHT.

Minister and Cologne. The news of these outrage-
ous, insupportable demands filled Amsterdam Avith
despair. The States General, the nobility, and the
people resolved to defend themselves to the last.
They broke the dykes of Muiden which restrained
the sea, and the waters burst over the cherished
land, greeted with cries of joy as an ally and a
savior. The country round Amsterdam, the innum-
erable villas, the flourishing villages, Delft, Leyden,
all the neighboring towns, were flooded : all was
changed ; Amsterdam was now a fortress surrounded
by the sea and defended by a bulwark of vessels.
Holland was no longer a state, but a fleet, which,
when every other hope of safety was lost, would
carry her riches, magistrates, and honor to the re-
mote ports of the colonies. Farewell, plumed cava-
liers, formidable artillery, pompous officers, theatrical
triumphs ! Admiral Ruyter routed the English and
French fleets, protected the coasts of Holland, and
led the Indian merchant fleet into the port of the
island of Texel. The Prince of Orange sacrificed
his riches to the state, inundated other districts,
shook Spain, won over the Governor of Flanders,
who sent him some regiments, gained the ear of the
Emperor of Germany, who sent Montecuccoli to his
aid at the head of twenty thousand soldiers, obtained
help from the Elector of Brandenburg, and persuaded
England to make peace. So he resisted France until
the winter, which covered Holland with ice and snow

UTKECIIT. 107

and arrested the invading army. With the return
of spring the battles recommenced on land and sea.
Fortune smiled sometimes on the French arms, but
neither the caution of the Great King, the genius of
his famous generals, nor the force of his powerful army
was sufficient to wrest the victory from the republic.
In vain Conde tried to penetrate into the heart of
inundated Holland ; in vain Turenne labored to pre-
vent the Prince of Orange from joining the army of
Montecuccoli : the Dutch took possession of Bonn
and attacked the Bishop of Minister. The King of
England withdrew from the alliance ; the French
army was obliged to retire from the undertaking.
The invasion had been a triumphal march, the re-
treat was a precipitous flight. The triumphal arches
raised in Paris to celebrate the conquest were not
even finished when the vanguard of the routed armv
arrived, and Louis XIV., on whom Europe smiled
at the beginning of the war, now found himself at
loggerheads with the whole continent. Thus little
Holland triumphed over the Grand Monarchy, the
love of country over greed of conquest, despair over
arrogance, and justice over force.

A few miles from Utrecht, near a beautiful wood,
is the village of Zeist, which is reached by a drive
bordered with parks and villas belonging to the rich
men of Rotterdam. In this village is a colony of
those renowned United Brethren, Bohemian Breth-

108 UTRECHT.

nil, or Moravian Brethren, a religious sect derived
from those founded by Valdus and John IIuss, who
turned Europe topsy-turvy. I had a great desire to
see the direct descendants of those Hussites "who
were burned at all stakes, hanged en all gallows,
nailed on every cross, broken on every wheel, torn
in pieces by every horse;" so I took a run over to
Zeist. This house of the Moravians was founded
toward the middle of the last century, and contains
about two hundred and fifty persons, counting men,
women, and children. The appearance of the place
is as austere as the life of its inmates. There are
two huge courtyards, separated by a wide street,
each of which is closed on three sides by a large
building as bare as a barrack. In one of these
buildings are the unmarried, the married, and the
schools ; in the other the widows and girls, the
church, the pastor, and the head of the community.
The ground floor is occupied by warehouses, which
contain merchandise, partly the work of the Mora-
vians, such as gloves, soap, and candles ; partly
bought to be sold again at a fixed price and very cheap.
The church is nothing but a large room, with two
galleries for strangers and some rough benches for
the brethren. The inside of the building looks like
a convent. There are simply long corridors with
small rooms on either side, in each of which a brother
lives, meditates, works, and prays. The life of the
brethren is most rigorous. They profess, outwardly at

TLhc IRevv Canal, intrecbt.

UTREUIT. 109

least, the Confession of Augsburg. They admit
original sin, but believe that the death of Jesus
Christ has entirely cleansed mankind. They hold
that the unity of the Church consists rather in
charity, which ought to unite the disciples of Christ
into one way of thinking and feeling, than in uni-
formity of worship. In a certain sense they practise
the community of goods and fill the common treasury
by voluntary contributions. Among themselves they
exercise all the necessary professions, such as medi-
cine, nursing, ministry, and teaching. The superiors
can punish by reproof, excommunication, and expul-
sion from the fraternity. The occupations of the
day are regulated as in a college — prayers, private
meetings, lectures, work, religious exercises at certain
hours and among the brethren of a given class. To
give an idea of the order that reigns in this fraternity
it is enough to mention, among many other strange
customs, that the different condition of the women is
indicated by the color of the ribbon they wear on
their heads. Girls up to ten years of age have a
rose-colored ribbon, up to eighteen a red one, and a
pale pink one up to the day they are married. The
married women wear blue ribbons, and the widows
white. Thus in this fraternity everything is classi-
fied, pre-established, measured; life passes as a ma-
chine works, man moves like an automaton, regula-
tions take the place of will, and time governs thought.
When I entered the middle of the building I saw

110 UTRECHT.

nothing but two immovable servants on a doorstep
and a girl with a red ribbon at the window. The
courtyards were deserted ; I did not hear a fly buzz
or see any sign of life. After I had looked about
here and there, as one looks at a cemetery through
the bars of the railing, I thoughtfully resumed the
road to Utrecht.

BROEK.

BROEK.

From the moment I began to write the first pages
of this book the thought of the pleasure I should
feel when I arrived at the village of Broek incited
me to continue ; for there were some days when I
felt discouraged and tired, and inclined to throw all
my papers into the fire ; but the same thought always
roused me from this prostration of mind. The image
of Broek was my guiding star. " How long will it
be before you go to Broek?" they used to ask me at
home. And I answered with a sigh, "Not for two
months — twenty days — a week." At last came the
much-desired day. I was merry and impatient; I
wished to express myself at the same time with pen,
brush, and voice ; I had so much to say I did not
know where to begin, and I laughed at myself, just
as my readers are now probably laughing at me.

In the various towns where I had stopped on my
journey from Rotterdam to Amsterdam I had heard
the village of Broek spoken of several times, but
always casually, in a way calculated rather to arouse
than satisfy my curiosity.

This name Broek when mentioned in company

Vol. II.— 8 113

1 1 4 BROEK.

made every one laugh. When I had asked some
people why they laughed, they answered, " Because
it is ridiculous." One man at the Hague said to me,
half peevishly, half in jest, " Oh, when will strangers
leave that precious Broek alone? Is there nothing
else about us to ridicule?" At Amsterdam my host
at the hotel, when tracing out my road on a map,
smiled to himself as much as to say, " How childish!"
I had asked every one for particulars, and no one
had been Avilling to give them. They shrugged their
shoulders and said, "You will see." Only from a
chance word which I caught now and then was I
able to gather that it was a very strange village, and
had been famous for its peculiarities since the last
century, and that it had been described, illustrated,
derided, and taken by strangers as a text for a
number of caricatures, fables, and jokes at the ex-
pense of the Dutch.

You may imagine the curiosity which tormented
me. It is enough to say that I dreamed of Broek
every night, and I should fill a book if I were
to describe all the fantastic, marvellous, impossible
villages that appeared to me in my sleep. It was an
effort for me to first take the trip to Utrecht, and on
my return to Amsterdam I instantly set out for the
mysterious village.

Broek is in North Holland, about halfway between
Edam and Amsterdam, and not far from the coast of
the Zuyder Zee. I had therefore to cross the Gulf

H TIMoman of Broefe,

BROEK. 115

of the Y and go some way down (lie Northern
Canal.

I embarked early in the morning on one of the
little steamers that leave every day for Alkmaar and
the Holder, and in a few minutes arrived at the
Grand Canal.

This is the largest canal in Holland, and one of the
most marvellous works accomplished in Europe during
the nineteenth century. All know how and why it was
opened. In former times, to reach the port of Ams-
terdam it was necessary for large ships to cross the
Zuyder Zee Gulf, which was covered with sandbanks
and was agitated by furious tempests. The passage
was long and dangerous, particularly where the Zuy-
der Zee Gulf joins that of the Y, because of a great
sandbank called Pampus which large ships could not
pass over without lightening their cargo and being
towed, a performance which cost both time and money.
To make an easier way to the port of Amsterdam
this large canal was built, running from the Gulf of
the Y as far as the North Sea, and crossing nearly
the whole of North Holland. It is about eighty kilo-
metres long, forty metres wide, and six deep. It was
begun in 1819 and finished in 1825, at a cost of thirty
million francs. By this means, when the weather is fa-
vorable, the largest ships reach the port of Amsterdam
from the North Sea in less than twenty-four hours.
Nevertheless, in comparison with other maritime
towns, the city is still at a disadvantage as regards

116 BROEK.

commerce, since the entrance to the Northern Canal,
near the island of Texel, is very difficult, and in the
canal itself the ships must be towed, so that the trip
costs about a thousand francs, and during severe
winters, when the waters freeze, navigation is stopped
or impeded, and sometimes as much as thirty thou-
sand florins are spent to open a passage. But the
courage of the Dutch did not fail even before these
difficulties, for they have opened a fresh road for
commerce. Another canal, on which they are work-
ing, will cross the Gulf of the Y in the direction of
its greatest length, will cut across the downs, and
open into the sea near the village of Wyk-aan-zee,
thus separating North Holland from the continent.
This canal will be twenty-five kilometres in length
and as wide as the Suez Canal ; by means of it ships
will be able to arrive at Amsterdam from the sea in
two hours and thirty minutes ; a- great part of the
Gulf of the Y, filled up with the material taken from
the bed of the canal, will be converted into arable
soil, and the path of the inundations by the sea,
which continually threaten Amsterdam, will be closed
for ever. The works, which were begun in 1866,
are almost finished, and on the 25th of September,
1872, a ship belonging to the society that is con-
ducting this great enterprise glided in triumph over
the new water-way, greeted joyfully by the city as a
herald announcing prosperity and fortune.

As soon as our steamer had passed the monu-

BKOEK. 1 1 7

mental lock of the Northern Canal, Amsterdam, the
gulf, the port, everything disappeared from view,
because at that spot the water of the canal is almost
three metres lower than the level of the sea, and I
could see nothing but a myriad of sail-yards, of tips
of steeples, of the arms cf windmills, which projected
above the very high embankments between which
we glided. From time to time the steamer passed
through a narrow lock, the banks were deserted, the
canal closed us in on every side, the horizon was
hidden ; it seemed as though we were steaming
through the windings of an inundated fortress.
After half an hour of this stealthy navigation we
arrived at a village, a real riddle of a village, formed
of a few colored cottages arranged along a dyke,
almost entirely hidden by a row cf trees cut in the
shape of fans and planted in front of the doors, as
if to hide the secrets of domestic life from the craze
of passers-by. The steamer passed through another
gate and came out into the open country, where quite
a new scene presented itself. As the level of the
waters of the canal was much higher than the sur-
rounding country, the boat was gliding along on a
level with the tops of the trees and houses that
flanked the dykes, and the people who were walking
along the paths looked up at the steamer just as we
had done a short time before to see the people who
were passing on the dykes. We met ships towed by
horses ; barges drawn by entire families, put in a

118 BEOEK.

line according to their age, from grandfather down
to grandchild, and in front of the grandchild a dog;
steamers coming from Alkmaar and from the Hel-
der, full of peasant-women with gold circles round
their foreheads. On every side we saw sail-boats,
and as the canals were hidden by the green dykes, it
seemed as though they were gliding over the grass
of the meadows.

When we had arrived at our goal I descended,
watched the steamer disappear, and then, all alone,
I took the road to Broek, bordered by a canal on the
right-hand side and a hedge on the left. I had an
hour's walk before me. The green country was
outlined by a thousand canals, dotted with groups
of trees and windmills, and silent as a desert.
Beautiful black and white cows wandered along the
canals or rested on the banks, with no one to tend
them ; flocks of ducks and geese as white as swans
were splashing about in the creeks; now and then a
boat glided past in which a peasant was rowing from
one field to another. This great plain, animated by
this slow, silent life, inspired me with such an agree-
able feeling of peace that the sweetest music would
have seemed to me a troublesome noise.

After half an hour's walk, although nothing of
Broek was yet visible excepting the tip of the
steeple, I began to see something here and there
that announced the neighborhood of a village. The
road crossed over a dyke by the side of which were

BROEK. 119

houses. One of these, a wooden hut, with a roof that
hardly reached the level of the street, — a rough, shat-
tered, crooked affair that seemed to he a den rather
than a house, had at the windows pert little white
curtains tied with blue ribbons, and in the room
I saw a table covered with cups, glasses, flowers,
and bric-a-brac which shone as though they were
crystal. When I had passed this house I saw two
stakes driven into the ground to prop up a hedge ;
both were painted in blue and white stripes like the
two ends of the oriflamme raised for public fetes.
A little farther on I found a peasant's cottage, in
front of which was an exhibition of buckets, benches,
rakes, hoes, and stakes, all colored red, blue, white,
or yellow, and striped and bordered with other colors,
like the belongings of a mountebank. I went on a
little way and saw rustic houses, their windows orna-
mented with lace, ribbons, iron network, movable
looking-glasses, and hanging-baskets, with many-col-
ored tiles and varnished doors. The farther I went
the greater became the brilliancy and variety of the
colors, the cleanliness, the brightness, and pomp. I
saw embroidered curtains with rose-colored ribbons
at the windows of the windmills, carts and agricul-
tural implements with their blades, bands, and nails
shining like silver, varnished wooden houses, red
ami white railings and fences, windows with their
glass panes bordered by two or three lines of dif-
ferent hues, and lastly, the strangest of oddities,

1 20 BEOEK.

trees with their trunks painted gray from root to
branch.

Laughing to myself at these eccentricities, I ar-
rived at a large basin surrounded by thick leafy
trees, beyond which, on the opposite bank, projected
a steeple. I looked around ; no one was to be seen
but a boy lying on the grass. " Broek ?" I demanded.
He laughed and answered, "Broek." Then I looked
more attentively, and amid the green of the trees I
saw such ridiculous, gaudy colors that an exclamation
.of surprise escaped me.

I went round the basin and passed over a little
wooden bridge as white as snow; I went down a
narrow street ; and gazed. Broek ! Broek ! Broek !
I recognized it; there could be no mistake: this could
not be other than Broek !

Imagine a cardboard manner for a Christmas fes-
tival built by a boy of eight — a town built up
in the window of a Nuremburg toy-shop, a village
constructed by a chorus-writer on the design of a
Chinese fan, a collection of puppet-shows belonging
to a wealthy mountebank, a group of villas made for a
travelling showman, the caprice of an Oriental under
the influence of opium, something which reminds one
at the same time of Japan, Tartary, India, Switzer-
land, and of Pompadour, of those sugar edifices that
confectioners put in their shop-windows, a medley
of the barbarous, delicate, presumptuous, effeminate,
ingenuous, and the stupid, which at one and the

BROEK. 121

same time offends good taste, provokes laughter, and
inspires affection, — imagine, in short, the most childish
eccentricity to which the name of village can be given
and you will form a vague idea of Broek.

All the houses are surrounded by gardens, and
separated from the street by sky-blue palings in the
shape of a balustrade or a railing, with wooden
fruits, apples or oranges, stuck on the points of each
pale. The streets that have these palings on either
side are very narrow, paved with small bricks of differ-
ent colors placed sideways, and arranged in all man-
ner of designs, so that from a distance they seem to
be streets covered with Turkish shawls. The greater
number of the houses are of wTood, only one story in
height and very small. Some are rose-color ; others
black, gray, purple, light blue, or the color of moun-
tain grass. Their roofs are covered with varnished
tiles arranged like a chess-board ; the gutters are
ornamented with a sort of wooden festoon perforated
like lace; the pointed facades are surmounted with
a small weathercock, a little lance, or something
which looks like a bunch of flowers; the windows
have panes of red or blue glass, and are adorned
with curtains, embroideries, ribbons, nets, fringes,
tassels, and trifles; the doors are painted and gilded
and decorated with all sorts of bas-reliefs represent-
ing flowers, figures, and trophies, in the midst of
which the name and profession of the proprietor can
be read. Nearly every house has two doors, one in

122 BROEK.

front and one behind, the last for every-day entrance
and exit, the former opened only on great occasions,
such as births, deaths, and marriages.

The gardens are as peculiar as the houses. They
seem to have been laid out for dwarfs. The paths
are hardly wide enough to walk in ; one could em-
brace the flower-beds ; the arbors would barely hold
two persons closely curled up ; the myrtle hedges
would scarcely reach to the knees of a four-year-old
child.

Between the arbors and the flower-beds run little
canals which seem made to float paper boats. T hey
are crossed by superfluous wooden bridges with col-
ored pillars and parapets ; there are ponds the size
of a bath, which are almost concealed by liliputian
boats tied with red cords to blue stakes; tiny stair-
cases, miniature kitchen-gardens, crossways, bowers,
little doors, and tiny gates. Everything could be
measured with the hand, crossed at a leap, and de-
molished by a blow. Moreover, there are trees cut
in the shape of fans, plumes, disks, trapezes, with
their trunks colored white and blue, and here and
there wooden kennels for the domestic animals
painted and decorated like royal doll palaces.

After looking at the first houses and gardens, I
entered the village. There was not a living soul in
the street or at the windows. All the doors were
closed, all the curtains drawn, all the canals deserted,
all the boats motionless. The village is built on such

flu a 5>utcb (Barren, Broefe.

BKOEK. 123

a plan that one cannot see more than four or five
cottages from any one spot, and as one advances a
house disappears, another is partly revealed, and a
third shows itself entirely, and everywhere among
the trunks of trees stripes and touches of the bright-
est color shine forth and vanish, like a troop of mas-
queraders who are playing at hide-and-seek. At
every step one discovers another s'age effect, a fresh
combination of hues, a novel caprice, some new
absurdity. It seems as though every moment a
population of automatons must issue from the doors
with Turkish cymbals and tabors in their hands,
like the figures that play on the street-organs.
Fifty steps take one round a house, over a bridge,
through a garden, across a street, and back where
one started. A child seems a man, and a man a
giant. Everything is minute, compact, affected,
painted, imitated, unnatural, and puerile. At first
it makes one laugh ; then one gets vexed at thinking
that the inhabitants of the village will imagine that
strangers consider it beautiful. The caricature ap-
pears odious, and one would like to accuse all the
masters of the houses of imbecility ; one feels a
desire to declare to them that their famous Broek is
an insult to art and nature, and that they have
neither good sense nor good taste. lint when one
has let off steam in invectives, one begins to laugh
again, and laughter prevails.

After walking about for a little while without

124 BROEK.

meeting a soul, I felt a desire to see the interior of
one of the houses. While I was looking around in
search of a hospitable being, I heard some one
call " Monsieur!" and turning round saw a woman
in a doorway, who asked me, timidly, "Would you
like to see a private house?" I accepted her invi-
tation ; the woman left her wooden shoes on the
doorstep, as is the custom in that country, and led
me inside. She was a poor widow, as she told me
when we entered, and had only one room, but what
a room ! The floor was covered with matting scrupu-
lously clean, the furniture shone like ebony, the
handles of the chest of drawers, the lock of the box,
the raised work on the bureau, the nails of the chairs,
even the nails in the wall, seemed to be of silver.
The chimney-piece was a real little temple all covered
with colored majolica tiles polished as if they had
never seen smoke. On a table was a copper ink-
stand, an iron pen, and some trifles which would
have attracted attention in a jeweller's shop. Wher-
ever one turned everything shone. Not seeing a
bed, I asked the good woman where she slept. In
answer she moved toward a wall and opened two
folding doors which were hidden by hangings. The
bed, in that house, as in all the others, was shut into
a sort of cupboard in the wall, and consisted of a
frame and a straw mattress extended over the bottom
part of the wall, without boards and trestles. These
beds may be comfortable in the Avinter, but must be

BROEK. 125

stifling in summer. I looked at the various utensils
for cleaning. There were enough to furnish a shop
— hig brooms, little brooms, tooth-brushes, dusters,
scrubbing-brushes, scrapers, rakes, rubbers, sticks,
skins, feather-dusters, aquafortis, -whiting for the
window-panes, rouge for the forks and spoons, coal-
dust for the copper, emery for the iron utensils, brick
powder for the floors, and even toothpicks to pick out
tiny bits of straw from between the bricks.

She gave me the most curious details about the
mania for cleaning for which Broek is famous
throughout Holland. Not very long ago there was
an inscription couched in these terms at the entrance
of the village : " Before or after sunset no one is
allowed to smoke in the village of Broek, excepting
with a pipe having a cover (so that the ashes shall
not be scattered), and any one crossing the village
on horseback must get out of the saddle and lead the
horse." It was also forbidden to cross the village in
a carriage or with sheep, cows, or any other animals
which might dirty the streets, and, although this pro-
hibition no longer exists, still from habit carts and
animals are usually driven around Broek. In front
of all the houses there used to be (and at some places
still are) stone spittoons into which smokers spit from
the window. The custom of not wearing shoes in
the house is still generally observed, so that heaps of
shoes, boots, and wooden clogs are seen in front of
all the doors. There is a story that a popular revolt

126 BROEK.

was caused at Broek by some strangers who scattered
their cherry-stones in the street; but it is quite true
that every citizen who sees a leaf or a bit of straw
blown before his house by the wind goes and picks it
up and throws it into the canal. That the people go
five hundred paces out of the village to dust their
shoes ; that there are boys paid to blow the dust
from between the bricks in the streets four times an
hour ; and that in certain houses the guests are carried
over the threshold, so as not to dirty the pavements —
these things, the woman told me, were good, character-
istic stories, but probably never occurred. However,
before allowing me to leave she told me an anecdote
which if true would make these eccentricities seem
possible. "At one time," she said, "the mania for
cleaning reached such a point that the women of
Broek neglected even their religious duties for scrub-
bing and washing. The village pastor, after trying
every sort of persuasion to end this scandal, thought
of another plan. He preached a long sermon in
which he said that every Dutch woman who had
faithfully fulfilled her duties toward God in this
world would find in the next a house packed full of
furniture and stored with the most various and pre-
cious articles of use and ornament, which, not being
distracted by other occupations, she would be able
to brush, wash, and polish for all eternity without
ever finishing. The promise of this sublime recom-
pense, the thought of this extreme happiness, filled

BROEK. 127

the women with such fervor and piety that from that
time forward they have never neglected their religious
duties, and have had no need of another stimulus."

Yet it is not this mania for cleaning nor the ec-
centric architecture I have described that is the cause
of the semi-serious celebrity of the village of Brock.
This celebrity was derived from an eccentricity of
customs and habits to which those of the present day
are not to be compared. Broek of to-day is but the
ghost of the Broek of the past. To be persuaded of
this it is necessary only to visit a house located at
the entrance of the village and open to strangers, a
complete model of the ancient houses, and preserved
by the proprietor as an historical monument of past
folly. On the outside, the house is not different from
the others: it is a puppet-show. The marvellous
part consists of the rooms and the garden. The
rooms are tiny, and resemble so many bazaars ; a
description of each would fill a volume. The Dutch
mania of heaping one thing upon another, and of
seeking beauty and elegance in the excess of in-
congruous objects, is here brought to the highest
degree of absurdity. There are porcelain figures on
the cupboards, Chinese cups and sugar-bowls on and
under the tables, plates fastened on the walls from
ceiling to floor, clocks, ostrich eggs, boats, ships,
shells, vases, plates, glasses placed in every corner
and concealed in every nook; pictures which represent
different figures according to the angle at which they

128 BROEK.

are viewed ; cupboards full of hundreds of trifles
and ornaments without name, senseless decorations,
a crowding and disorder, a confusion of colors, — bad
taste so innocently displayed that it is at once amus-
ing and provoking. But all this extravagance is far
surpassed in the garden. Here one sees bridges
placed for ornament over streamlets only a hand's-
breadth wide, grottoes, tiny cascades, small rustic
churches, Greek temples, Chinese kiosks, Indian
pagodas, painted statues, little dolls with gilded
hands and feet jumping out of flower-baskets,
life-size automatons that smoke and spin, cabinets
which open at the touch of a spring and show a
company of puppets seated at table, little ponds
with tin swans and geese floating in them, beds
covered with mosaic-work in shells, with a fine china
vase in the middle, trees which represent human
figures, box bushes cut in the shape of steeples,
churches, naves, chimeras, peacocks with outspread
tails, and children stretching out their arms; paths,
cottages, hedges, flowers, plants all twisted into un-
natural shapes, tortured and deformed. There was
a time when all the houses and gardens in Broek
were like this.

But now not only the appearance of the village,
but the population, is in great part changed. In
former times Broek was called the village of million-
aires, because nearly all its inhabitants were wealthy
merchants who settled there for the love of retire-

BKOEK. 129

ment and peace. Little by little, ennui, the ridicule
to which their houses and they themselves were sub-
jected, the importunity of travellers, the desire for
more beautiful places, drove away nearly all the rich
families, and the few who remained ceased from the
emulation which all these childish marvels had
created, and allowed the old order to disappear.
Now Broek has about a thousand inhabitants, of
whom the greater number make cheese, and the
others are shopkeepers, farmers, and mechanics who
live on their incomes.

Although Broek has declined, it is still visited by
almost all strangers who travel in Holland. In one
room of the house I have described there was an
enormous book containing thousands of cards and
autographs of visitors from every country. The
greater number of the visitors were Englishmen and
Americans, the smallest number Italians, and these
few were almost all members of the nobility of
Southern Italy. Among many illustrious names I
saw those of Victor Hugo, Walter Scott, Gambetta,
and Emile Augier the dramatist. Among the sou-
venirs there is a paper-weight presented by the Em-
peror and Empress of Russia to a citizen of Broek
as a sign of their gratitude for the hospitality he had
offered the Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandrovitch.

Apropos of illustrious visitors, Alexander of Rus-
sia and Napoleon the Great have been at Broek.

Local tradition recounts that both of them, wishing
Vol. II.— 9

130 BROEK.

to see the interior of one of the houses, were obliged
before entering to slip on some very coarse stockings
which were given them by the servant, so that they
would not dirty the floor with their boots. I dare
not assert that this is true, but it is told in certain
memoirs of Napoleon's travels in Holland that at
Broek it irritated him to see the streets deserted and
the people shut in the houses staring at him from
behind the window-panes, as if they were keeping
watch over him for fear he should soil the railings of
the gardens. The Emperor Joseph II. also paid a
visit to Broek, but it is said that, having taken no
letters of introduction, he could not enter any house.
When one of his aides-de-camp insisted on their al-
lowing His Majesty to enter, the mistress of a house
answered : " I do not know your emperor, and if he
were even the burgomaster of Amsterdam in person,
I do not receive those I do not know."

When I had visited the old house and garden, I
entered a little coffee-house where a barefoot girl
understood my sign language, and brought me half
of a good Edam cheese, eggs, and butter, each
placed under a majolica cover, protected by a wire
netting, and hidden by the whitest embroidered table
napkin. Afterward I was escorted by a boy, who
talked to me by signs, to see a farm. Many people
among us who wear silk hats and gold watches do
not live in such clean and agreeable apartments as
those in which the cows of Broek give themselves

H E>utcb Cottage, Broeft.

BEOEK. 131

airs. Before entering you must wipe your boots on
a mat in front of the door, and if you do not do this
of your own accord you are requested to do so. The
flooring of the stables is of different-colored bricks,
which are so clean that you can pass your hands over
them ; the windows are adorned with muslin curtains
and pots of flowers ; the mangers are painted, the
cows are combed, brushed, and washed, and, so that
they shall not dirty themselves, they have their tails
supported by cords which are fastened to nails in the
ceiling ; a stream of running water passes continually
through the stables and carries away any impurities.
Excepting under the legs of the cattle you do not see
a straw or a spot, and the air is so pure that if
you were blindfolded you would think you were in
a drawing-room. The rooms of the peasants, the
rooms where the cheese is made, the courtyards, the
very corners, are all equally clean and shining.

Before leaving for Amsterdam I took another turn
round the village, taking care to hide my cigar when
any woman with a golden diadem looked at me from
a window. I passed over two or three white
bridges, touched several boats with my foot, stopped
a short time in front of the gayest of the houses, and
then, not seeing a living soul in the streets or gar-
dens, I retraced my solitary steps on the horse of
St. Francis, with that feeling of sadness that always
accompanies the satisfaction of a great curiosity.

ZAANDAM.

Z A AN DAM.

The greater number of strangers after visiting
Broek and the town of Zaandam leave for Friesland,
and return to the Hague persuaded that they have
seen Holland. On the contrary, I wished to push
on as far as the extremity of North Holland, thinking
that I should find quaint customs and ancient man-
ners more strictly preserved in this out-of-the-way
province, unfrequented by strangers and not overrun
by visitors. The danger of not being able to make
myself understood, of getting into bad hotels, of
finding myself alone, discouraged and melancholy, in
towns so small as not even to be marked on the map
of the guide-books — towns that the most patient
travellers pass by, — none of these things turned me
from my purpose. One fine August morning the
demon of travel, the most powerful of all demons
who take possession of the human soul, bore me and
my portmanteau aboard a steamer leaving for Zaan-
dam, started me the same day for Alkmaar, the me-
tropolis of cheese, and on the same evening bought
me a second-class ticket for the Helder, the Gibraltar
of the North.

Zaandam, viewed from the Gulf of the Y, presents

135

136 ZAANDAM.

the appearance of a fortress crowned with innumer-
able towers, from the tops of which the desperate
citizens are signalling for help to a distant army.
Hundreds of the highest windmills rise among the
houses, on the dykes, along the coast, over all the
country round the town : some are draining the land;
others crushing out colza oil, one of the most im-
portant commercial industries of Zaandam ; others
pulverizing a sort of volcanic tufa carried down by
the Rhine, Avhich is used to make a special kind of
cement for hydraulic works ; others are sawing wood,
winnowing barley, grinding colors, making paper,
mustard, enamel, rope, starch, and paste. The town
comes into view just as one is entering the port.

It is like a scene in a pastoral drama.

The town is built along the two banks of a river
called the Zaan, which flows into the Y, and encircles
a small basin formed by the Y itself, which serves as
a harbor. The twTo equal parts into which the town
is divided are connected by a drawbridge which opens
to allow ships to pass. Hound the port there are
only a few streets and houses, for the chief part of
Zaandam extends along the banks of the Zaan.

The steamer went so close as to touch the shore.
I descended, freed myself from a band of ciceroni,
and in a few moments was walking along the prin-
cipal streets.

Zaandam is a sort of large Broek, although less
childish and prettier than the little Broek.

ZAANDAM. 137

The houses are wooden, and are but one story in
height. They have pointed gables and are nearly
all painted green. There are streets along which
one sees no other color. They look as though they
belonged to a town of box and myrtle. As at Broek,
the tiles of the roofs are varnished, the windows
adorned with flowers and curtains, the streets paved
with bricks and clean as the floor of a drawing-room.
Everywhere one can see one's self reflected in the
window-panes, in the brass door-plates, in the articles
placed on the window-sills. The whole town breathes
an air of cheerfulness, freshness, and innocence which
inspires affection. It is rich and populous, and yet
it seems but a mere village. It has every feature of
a Dutch city, and at the same time there is about it
a strange and foreign look which distinguishes it from
all the other cities.

It was a holiday, and the principal streets were
filled with people going to or from church. My at-
tention was first attracted by the head-dresses of the
women. Under a hat trimmed with flowers they
wear a sort of lace cap which falls to their shoulders,
and below this peep out two knots of tightly-curled hair
resembling bunches of grapes. The circle of gold
or silver which surrounds the head and shines throuirh
the lace of the cap ends on the temples in two little
square plates turned outward, with a rosette in the
centre. Another plate, gilded and chased, a sort of
metal ribbon tied to the circle, nobody knows how,

138 ZAANDAM.

crosses the forehead obliquely, and descends until it
almost touches the opposite temple or the eye or the
space between the eyebrows, so that it appears to be
a piece of the circle itself, broken and left hanging
either through negligence or for ornament. Two
large pins, stuck in vertically at the top of the cir-
cle, rise like horns above the two knots of curls.
Very long earrings hang from the ears, the neck is
ornamented by several rows of necklaces, the bosom
with studs, brooches, buckles, and chains enough to
fill a jeweller's window. All the women, with slight
differences, dress in this manner, and, as they are all
fair and pink-cheeked and all dress with equally bad
taste, a stranger at first sight does not distinguish
between a peasant and a lady. No one would say
that this head-dress and the superabundance of orna-
ments are either beautiful or elegant, yet those fair
faces framed in the lace and gold, the mingling of
the patrician with the peasant, of the refined with the
coarse, of the proud with the ingenuous, has a grace
peculiar to itself which accords wonderfully with the
appearance of the town, and is pleasing in the end.

Even the children have their diadems and their
laces. The men are generally dressed in black.
Children, men, girls, women, young and old, all
wear an expression of content — something primitive,
virginal, and fresh, that makes it hard to believe that
they are Europeans of the present day. One imagines
one's self to be on another continent, in the midst of

ZAANDAM. 139

another civilization, in a city where riches are gath-
ered without fatigue, where life flows on without
passion, where society moves tranquilly without fric-
tion, and no one desires aught but peace. And if,
while one is thinking these thoughts, the clock of
the nearest steeple rings out some old national air,
then the illusion is complete, and one feels a desire
to carry one's family and friends to Zaandam and to
end one's peaceful days in one of the little green
houses.

But if this beatitude be only an illusion, it is a
fact that Zaandam is one of the richest cities in Hol-
land— that shipbuilders who are millionaires live in
those little green cottages, that there are no families
without bread and no children without teachers.

Besides this, Zaandam possesses what Napoleon I.
called the finest monument in Holland — the cottage
of Peter the Great, in honor of whom the town was
for a time, and still is by many, called Czardam or
Saardam. A legion of ciceroni whisper the name of
this famous cottage in the ear of every stranger who
arrives at Zaandam, and it is the goal of all who
visit the town.

The time and reason of the great emperor dwelling
in this cottage are knowm to all. After he had con-
quered the Tartars and Turks, and had made a tri-
umphal entry into Moscow, the young czar wished
to travel through the principal European states to
study their arts and industries. Accompanied by

140 ZAANDAM.

three ambassadors, four secretaries, twelve noblemen,
fifty guards, and one dwarf, he left his own states,
in April, 1697, crossed Livonia, passed through
Prussia, Brandenburg, Pomerania, Berlin, and West-
phalia, and arrived at Amsterdam fifteen days be-
fore his suite. In this city, unknown to all, he
spent some time in the arsenals of the Admiralty,
and then, in order to learn with his own eyes and
hands the art of shipbuilding (for which the Dutch
at that time were famous), he dressed himself as a
sailor and went to Zaandam, where were the most
famous arsenals. Here, under the name of Peter
Michaelof, he entered the shipyard of a certain
Mynheer Kalf, enrolled himself among the number
of his workmen, worked as a ship-carpenter, smith,
and rope-maker, and during his whole stay at Zaan-
dam dressed like his fellow-laborers, ate the same
food, and slept like them in a wooden hut, which is
the one still shown. How long he remained in this
city is not certainly known. Some say he was
there for months ; others believe, and this is more
probable, that he was annoyed by the curiosity of
the inhabitants, and remained there only a week.
It is certain however, that when, after a short time,
he returned to Amsterdam, he finished with his own
hands in the shipyards of the East India Company
a vessel with sixty guns, that he studied mathematics,
physics, geography, anatomy, and painting, and that
he left Amsterdam in January, 1698, to go to London.

ZAANDAM. 141

The famous hut is at the extremity of Zaandam,
facing the open country. It is encased in a small
brick building erected by Anna Paulowna, Queen of
Holland and a Russian by birth, to defend it from
the weather. It is reallv a fisherman's hut, built of
wood and consisting of two little rooms, and so di-
lapidated and leaning that if it were not propped up
by the building that surrounds it a gust of wind
would blow it over. In one room are three rough
seats, a large table, a folding bed, and a large chim-
ney built in the old Flemish style. In the second
room hang two large portraits — one of Peter the
Great dressed as a workman, and the other of the
Empress Catherine. Russian and Dutch flags are
draped from the ceiling. The table, the walls, the
shutters, the doors, the beams, are all covered with
names, verses, sentences, and inscriptions in every
language. There is a slab of marble on which is writ-
ten "Petro magno Alexander" — placed there by order
of Emperor Alexander of Russia in memory of his
visit in 1814. Another stone records the visit paid
by the hereditary prince in 1839, and under it is a
stanza by a Russian poet which runs: "Over this
humble abode the holy angels watch. Czarevitch !
bow thy head. This is the cradle of thy empire,
here was the grandeur of Russia born." Other
slabs commemorate the visits of kings and princes,
and there are other verses, especially in Russian,
which express the enthusiasm and joy of those who

142 ZAANDAM.

have arrived at the goal of their pilgrimage. One
of these inscriptions records that the carpenter Peter
Michaelof from this hut directed the movements of
the Muscovite army that was fighting against the
Turks in the Ukraine.

On leaving I thought that if the most glorious day
in the life of Peter the Great was that on which he
fell asleep in this cottage after working with his own
hands for the first time in his life, the happiest must
have been that on which he returned thither after
eighteen years in the height of his power and glory,
and showed Catherine the place where by working
as an artisan he had learned to be an emperor. The
inhabitants of Zaandam speak of that day with pride
as if it were an event they had witnessed. The
czarina had remained at Wesel for her confinement ;
the czar arrived at Zaandam alone. It is easy to
imagine with what joy and pride he was received by
the merchants, sailors, and carpenters whose com-
panion he had been eighteen years before. To the
world he was the conqueror of Pultowa, the founder
of St. Petersburg, the civilizer of Russia; to them
he was Peterbaas, Master Peter, as they called him
familiarly when working together; he was a son of
Zaandam who had become an emperor ; he was an
old friend who had returned. Ten days after her
confinement the czarina arrived, and also visited the
hut. The emperor and empress, without suite or
pomp, dined at the house of Mynheer Kalf, the ship-

Hfternoon U\ Zaan&am.

..-•*:«

_

HlHI Hfl

■MMW

ZAANDAM; 143

builder who had received the royal young artisan in
his shipyard ; the people accompanied him, crying,
"Long life to Master Peter!" and Master Peter, who
exterminated Russian nobles and boyars, who con-
demned his own son, — Master Peter the terrible ruler
wept.

To go to Alkmaar, I took passage on a steamer
that went up the Zaan as far as the Northern Canal,
and consequently I saw East and West Zaandam, or
all that part of the town which extends almost three
miles along the two banks of the river. It is a
spectacle that vindicates Broek a hundred times.

Every one remembers the first landscapes he
painted as a child, when his father or uncle gave
him a long-expected box of colors. Usually we
wish to paint some delicious place, such as we dream
of in school while we doze over the last Latin lesson
toward the end of the month of June. To make
this spot really delightful we attempt to put in a tiny
space a villa, a garden, a lake, a wood, a meadow, a
kitchen-garden, a river, a bridge, a grotto, a cascade,
and we crowd them all together, and, that nothing
shall escape the eye of the spectator, we paint every-
thing in the brightest, gaudiest colors in the box,
and when all is finished we fancy that we have not
taken advantage of every bit of space, and stick a
house here, a tree there, and a cottage at the bottom ;
and when at last it is no longer possible to put in

144 ZAANDAM.

even a blade of grass, a stone, or a flower, we put
down our brush quite satisfied with the work, and
run to show it to the servant, who clasps her hands
in wonder and exclaims that it is truly an earthly-
paradise. Well, Zaandam seen from the river is
exactly like one of those landscapes.

All the houses are green, and the roofs are covered
with the reddest of red tiles, on which rise turrets
which are green too, surmounted by many-colored
weathercocks or by striped wooden balls placed on
iron poles ; little towers crowned with balustrades
and pavilions ; buildings in the form of temples and
villas ; sheds and hovels, of a structure never seen
before, crowded closely against each other and seem-
ing to dispute the space — an architecture of expe-
dients, all vanity and show. In the midst of these
buildings are little streets hardly wide enough for
one person to pass through, squares as narrow as
rooms, courtyards little bigger than a table, canals
down which only a duck could swim, and in front,
between the houses and the banks of the river, are
childish little gardens full of huts, chicken-houses,
arbors, railings, toy windmills, and weeping willows.
In front of these gardens, on the banks of the river,
are little ports full of little green boats tied to little
green posts. In the midst of this medley of gardens
and sheds very high windmills rise on every side —
these also painted green and striped in white or
painted white and bordered with green. Their arms

ZAANDAM. 145

are painted like flagstaff's, and are gilded and orna-
mented with circles of many shades. There are
green steeples, varnished from the bottom to the
top — churches that look like booths at a fair, chec-
quered and bordered in every tint of the rainbow.

But the strangest thing of all is that the buildings,
which are small enough at the entrance to the river,
decrease in size as one proceeds, as if the population
were distributed according to their height, until at
the end there are sentinel-boxes, hen-coops, mouse-
traps, hiding-places which seem to be the projections
of a subterranean city, a diminutive architecture
which at a distance of ten steps seems to be far away
— the crumbs of a city, a real human beehive, where
children look like giants and the cats jump from the
pavement to the roof. Here, however, there still are
gardens, but they are entirely filled by one bench, a
summer-house capable of holding one person only,
pavilions as large as umbrellas, weeping willows,
little staircases, diminutive windmills, weathercocks,
flowers, and color.

Is this really the serious work of men ? one asks
one's self in front of this spectacle. Is this really
a city? Will it be here next year? Has it not
rather been built for a festival, and next week Avill
it not be all pulled down and piled up in the ware-
house of some Amsterdam decorator ? Ah, what
jesters the Dutch arc !
Vol. II.— 10

ALKMAAR.

ALKMAAR.

The ship, after leaving Zaandam, glided for a long
distance between two uninterrupted rows of wind-
mills, stopped at several villages, turned into the
Marken Vaart Canal, crossed the Lake of Alkniaar,
and finally entered the great Northern Canal. How-
ever much I tried, I should never be able to express
the feeling of loneliness, of separation and bewilder-
ment, that came upon me in the midst of a crowd of
peasant-women diademed like queens and as motion-
less as idols, while the steamer sped on with the
smoothness of a gondola across a boundless, uniform
plain under a heavy sky. At certain moments I
asked myself how I had wandered there, where I
was going, and when I should return. I felt home-
sick for Amsterdam and the Hague, as though the
country through which I was passing was as far
from the south of Holland as Southern Holland is
from Italy, and I decided never again to travel alone,
for it seemed to me that I should never return home.

At that moment I was in the bosom of North Hol-
land— that little peninsula watered by the North Sea
and the Gulf of the Zuyder Zee which is almost all

149

150 ALKMAAR.

below the level of the waters that surround it. It is
defended on one side by the dunes and on the other
by immense dykes, and is intersected by an infinite
number of canals, marshes, and lakes, which give it
the appearance of a land partly submerged and des-
tined to disappear under the waves. Over all the
space that was visible only some groups of trees, a
few sails, and windmills were to be seen.

The part of the Northern Canal through which
the steamer was passing at that moment runs along-
side of the Beemster, the largest tract of land drained
in the seventeenth century, the bed of one of the
forty-three lakes that originally covered the province
of Alkmaar, and are now transformed into beautiful
fields. This Beemster, which extends over an area
of seven thousand hectares and is governed like the
other polders by a committee elected by the proprie-
tors (the expenses being paid by a tax levied at so
much per hectare), is divided into a great many
squares surrounded by streets paved with brick, and
canals which give it the appearance of an immense
chess-board. The land lays almost three and a half
metres below the level of Amsterdam, and the rain-
water has to be continually drawn off by windmills,
which pour it into the canals, through which it flows
to the sea.

In the entire polder there are about three hundred
farms, Avhere six thousand horned cattle and four
hundred horses are pastured. The only trees are

ALKMAAR. 151

poplars, elrns, and willows, and these are grouped
round the houses to protect them from the wind.
Like the Beemster, so all the other polders consist
entirely of meadow-land. The only objects that
attract the attention on those green plains are the
stakes that support the storks' nests, and occasionally
an enormous bone of a whale, an ancient trophy of
the Dutch fishermen, planted upright in the ground
for the cows to rub against. All the produce is
transported from farm to farm in boats ; the houses
are entered over drawbridges which are raised at
night like the bridge over the moat of a fortress ;
the herds of cattle feed without shepherds ; the
ducks and swans paddle unwatched down the long
canals ; everything tells of security, abundance, and
contentment. In fact, it is in these provinces that
the famous breed of cattle to which Holland in a
great measure owes her riches flourishes in all its
beauty — those large, peaceful cows which give as
much as thirty quarts of milk a day, descendants
of those glorious animals that in the Middle Ages
were taken to France, Belgium, Germany, Sweden,
and Russia to improve the breeds of those countries.
It is related that a drove of these cattle crossed the
continent as far as Odessa, traversing step by step
the road that the great Teutonic invasion had passed
over. From the milk of these coavs is made that
exquisite Edam cheese, so called after a city in North
Holland whose fame is world-wide. On market-days

152 ALKMAAE.

all the towns in this province overflow with these
fine red cheeses heaped up like cannon-halls in the
streets and squares, and exhibited to strangers with
an air of national pride. Alkmaar in one year sells
more than four million kilogrammes of cheese, Hoorn
three million, Purmerende two million, Medemhlick
and Enkhuizen seven or eight hundred thousand,
and the whole of North Holland more than fifteen
million francs' worth. All these details will make a
poet or a young lady smile, and I understand that
they would sound poorly in a sonnet, but . . . if
we Italians did a few more things of this kind and
wrote fewTer sonnets !

As the steamer neared Alkmaar, I began as usual
to arouse my curiosity by recalling to myself all I
knew about Alkmaar, little dreaming in what a
plight I should find my poor self within its walls.
I painted it destroyed by John of Avesnes, Count
of Holland, as a punishment for its rebellion. I
followed the courageous carpenter who crossed the
Spanish camp and carried from the Prince of Orange
to the governor of the province the order to cut the
dykes, and then lost the answer of the governor,
which was found and read by Frederick, son of the
Duke of Alva, a circumstance which induced him to
abandon the siege so as not to die by drowning. I
saw a group of scholars amusing themselves by look-
ing at the snow-covered country through splinters of
ice fastened to the tube of an inkstand, and the good

ALKMAAR. 153

Metius came amongst them and from their game
obtained the first idea of a spyglass. On a street-
corner I met the painter Schornel with his head still
wounded from a drubbing he had received in a fight
in the taverns of Utrecht, where he had gone to get
drunk with that fine fellow, John of Manberge, his
master in art and dissipation. Finally, I imagined
the beautiful women of Alkmaar, who by their
modest and innocent demeanor were able to make
the great Napoleon forget the stupidity of Amster-
dam and his contempt for Broek. Meanwhile the
steamer arrived at Alkmaar, where a porter who
knew only three French words — Monsieur, hotel,
and pourboir — took the valise from my hand and
dratrired me off to a hotel.

"o;=r

Alkmaar offers nothing unusual to those who have
seen other Dutch towns. It is a city of regular
form, with broad canals and wide streets, and the
usual red houses with the usual triangular faqades.
Some large squares are entirely paved with small
red and yellow bricks, arranged in symmetrical de-
signs, which from a distance look like a carpet.
The streets have two pavements — one of brick for
ordinary people, and another of stone, which is on
a slightly higher level and is reserved for the inhabit-
ants of each house, on which one must not place foot
unless one does not mind being glared at from the
window by the falcon eyes of the master of the

154 ALKMAAR.

house. Many houses are whitewashed only half-
way up — I do not know why, perhaps for beauty ;
many are painted black and seem to be in mourning ;
others are varnished like carriages from the roof to
the pavement. The windows are very low : one may
look between the beautiful tulips and hyacinths that
adorn the sills into drawing-rooms o-litterino; with
mirrors and china, and see families gathered round
tables covered with mugs of beer, liqueur-stands, bis-
cuits, and cigar-boxes. One may walk for long dis-
tances without meeting any one, which is a strange
occurrence in a town of more than ten thousand in-
habitants. The few people, men, women, or children,
who pass one or stand at the doors, greet strangers
courteously. I passed close to a group of college
students headed by a professor, who made a sign,
upon which they all raised their caps, although I cer-
tainly was not dressed in a Avay to impress them with
my importance. The town has no noteAvorthy mon-
uments excepting the town-hall, a building of the
seventeenth century, partly Gothic and partly of no
school, which in miniature resembles the municipal
palace of Brussels, and the large church of St. Law-
rence, which belongs to the same period, in which is
the tomb of Count Florentius V. of Holland, and a
facsimile of Ruyter's flagship hanging like a lustre
over the choir. To the east of the city is a dense
wood which serves as a public walk, where on holi-
days the trotting races, or harddraverij, take place

ALKMAAK. 1 55

with the genuinely Dutch prize of a silver coffee-pot.
Notwithstanding the fine wood, the church, the town-
hall, and its eleven thousand inhabitants, Alkmaar
seems to be only a huge village, and such a profound
silence reigns in its streets that the music of the
steeples, which is even stranger than that in the
other towns, is heard all over the city as loud and
clear as though it were the dead of the night.

Passing along the lonely streets toward the centre
of the town, I began to see more people, most of
whom were women, and, as it was a holiday, they
were all tricked out in gold and finery, particularly
the peasants. To tell the truth, I do not know what
Napoleon could have had in his eyes the day he ar-
rived at Alkmaar. Certainly one sees there some
pretty nun-like faces which express perfect innocence,
and, above all, little cheeks colored the prettiest rosy
hue that modesty ever painted on the face of a vir-
gin. But the effect of this simple grace is utterly
destroyed by the atrocious head-dress and the still
more atrocious costume. Besides the cluster of curls,
the ear-rings like horses' blinkers, the slabs that cross
the forehead, and the white cap that conceals the
ears and nape of the neck, they wear on their heads,
or rather on the crown of their heads, a large cylin-
drical straw hat Avith a wide brim trimmed with green,
yellow, or other colored silk, narrow' behind and
turned up in front, so that between the brim and the
forehead there is a wide empty space, like that in

156 ALKMAAR.

one of those huge ugly mouths that the Chinese
soldiers used to put on in past times to frighten their
enemies. Besides this, their hips are extremely
high, but whether they are made so by petticoats or
in some other way I do not know, and their figures
are enormous at the waist and decrease toward the
arm-pits, just the reverse of our women, who delight
in a broad chest and a small waist. And, if this
were not enough, they compress their chests to such
an extent (for I cannot believe that Nature has been
so niggardly to them all) that not a sign of a curve
appears, as if they consider that to be a shameful
monster or a ridiculous defect which women of
other countries think the greatest beauty. Conse-
quently, it is no wonder that bundled up, compressed,
and wearing such head-dresses, even the prettiest of
them scarcely seem to be women. It is therefore
easy to imagine how those less favored by nature
appear; and at Alkmaar these are in the majority.

Thus reviewing the fair sex, I arrived at a large
square full of stalls and people, from which I per-
ceived I had come to Alkmaar on a kermesse day.

This is the strangest and most characteristic phase
of Dutch life.

The kermesse is the Dutch Carnival, with this
difference from the Carnival of Italy, that it lasts
only eight days and is celebrated at a different time
in every village. It is difficult to say of what this
festival consists. During kermesse in every Dutch

Uhe XTown Wefgbina Ibouse, Hlfemaar.

ALKMAAR. 157

town there springs into being another town, composed
of coffee-houses, theatres, shops, booths, and pavilions,
which as soon as the holiday meeting ends disappears
like an encampment. Everything is packed on the
barges and carried to another place. The inhab-
itants of this wandering town are tradespeople, mu-
sicians, comedians, mountebanks, giants, fat women,
enormous children, deformed animals, wax figures,
wooden horses, automatons, monkeys, trained dogs,
and wild beasts. In the midst of the innumerable
booths in which this strange population lives there
are hundreds of painted, varnished, and gilded cabins,
each containing one saloon and four small rooms in
the shape of an alcove, in which girls dressed in the
Frisian costume with golden head-piece and lace cap
serve their customers with special sweetmeats called
broedertijes, which form the emblematic food of the
feast, like the Italian penny buns at Christmas and
crumpets at Epiphany. Besides the coffee-houses
and the sheds of the fakirs there are bazaars, trained
animals, circuses, large theatres in which operas are
sung, and every kind of extraordinary spectacle to
please the people. Such is the temporary town in
which the kermesse is celebrated, but the actual fete
is duitc another thins;. In those cafes and booths,
in the streets and the squares, night and day through-
out the kermesse, servants and workmen, men and
women of the peasantry, all sorts and conditions of
the lower classes, drink and tipple, dance, sing, stamp,

158 ALKMAAR.

embrace, and mingle together with an impetuosity
and license beside which the disorder of our Italian
Carnival nights is child's play. In those days the
Dutch nation throws off its usual character and be-
comes unrecognizable. Although the people are, as
a rule, serious, economical, domestic, and modest, at
the time of the kermesse they become boisterous,
they scoff at decency, pass their nights in debauchery,
and spend a month's savings in one day. The ser-
vants, who are allowed an extraordinary amount of
freedom during these days (if they are not granted
it, they take it), are the principal actresses at the
feast. Every one of them is accompanied by her
fiance or lover, or by some young man hired for
the occasion, the price varying as he wears a high
hat or a cap, as he is handsome or ugly, as he is a
bumpkin or smart fellow. The peasants come to
town or to the village for their share of the kermesse
on a fixed day, which is called the peasants' day,
and they too make no distinction between good and
evil. The height of the uproar is reached on Satur-
day night. Then it is no longer a feast ; it is a
brawl, a revel, a saturnalia, that has no equal in any
other country in Europe. For a long time I would
not believe certain Dutchmen who painted the ker-
messe in such horrible colors, and I believed, as other
more indulgent persons told me, that those were in-
tolerant and rancorous Puritans. But when I heard
the same things confirmed by unprejudiced people,

ALKMAAR. 159

by eye-witnesses, by Dutchmen, and by foreigners,
who said, " I saw it myself from this box or this
window," then I too believed in the theatres con-
verted into dens of vice, in chastity forgotten in the
streets, in the unbridled license of the crowds, and
even in those Dutchmen, who call this feast a national
disgrace.

It is only fair and right, however, to say that for
some years the kermesse has been declining. Public
opinion is divided on this point. Some are in favor
of it because it delights them either as actors in it or
as spectators, and these excuse or deny the disorders
and say that the prohibition of the kermesse would
cause a revolution. Others, who are opposed to it
and would like to see it suppressed, encourage with
this object the institution of theatres and decent
forms of amusement for the people, the lack of
which, they assert, is the principal cause of the
excesses to which the nation gives way on the one
occasion of the kermesse. The opinion of this party
is gaining ground day by day. In several towns
precautions are taken to bridle the bacchanalia ; in
others it is fixed at what hour at night the shops must
close ; in others the booths have been removed from
the centre of the cities. The municipality of Am-
sterdam has named a certain number of years after
the lapse of which the temporary Sybaris in which
the feasts are held shall not be rebuilt. So it is as-
sured that before very long the famous kermesse will

1G0 ALKMAAR.

be reduced to a merry, temperate Carnival, with great
gain to public morals and national dignity.

The kermesses, however, are not noisy and scan-
dalous to the same degree in every town. At the
Hague, for example, they are much less boisterous
than at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, and I imagine
(although I did not spend the night there) that at
Alkmaar they are more moderate than at the Hague ;
which, however, does not signify that they are the
acme of decency.

The square where I stood was full of many-colored
booths, before which clowns dressed in flesh-colored
tights and tight-rope walkers in short petticoats
danced and played and grew hoarse with calling the
people. In front of every booth there was a crowd
of curious folk, from which now and then two or
three peasants detached themselves to enter and see
the performance. I do not remember ever having
seen such simple, mild, and easily-amused people.
Between the songs a boy ten years of age, dressed
like a clown, would stand up on a sort of stage near
the door, and of himself would be able to hold a crowd
of two hundred people in front of the booth and make
them roar with laughter. How? Not by telling
funny stories like the Parisian clowns, not by jump-
ing and making grimaces ; nothing of the sort : he
simply now and then, with the utmost composure,
made a paper arrow and threw it into the crowd,
accompanying the act by a slight smile. This suf-

ALKMAAK. 161

ficcd to send these good people, into raptures. As I
made the circuit of the booths I met some country-
women who were rather tipsy ; I heard a girl who
was unsteady on her legs sing in falsetto ; I saw
some loving couples who were very demonstrative,
some groups of women preparing for the night's
brawl by butting against each other with shoulder
and hip, so that they staggered ; but I saAv nothing
criminal. It was really, as Alphonse Esquiros says,
a Babel of people who did not know what to do with
themselves. But as I considered Esquiros's judg-
ment only applied to the day, and foresaw that toward
evening a much more dramatic spectacle would begin,
and did not wish to find myself alone at night in the
midst of the rioting of an unknown country, I de-
cided to start immediately for the Ilelder, and took
the shortest road to the hotel.

When I first entered the hotel I had not spoken to
any one, as the porter who accompanied me had asked
for my room and had carried up my bag; conse-
quently, I thought that the hotel-keeper or at least
some of the waiters understood French. When I
returned both waiters and landlord had probably
gone to drink in some booth, and in the hotel there
was only an old servant, who took me into a room on
the first floor, and, making me comprehend that she
did not understand me, left me and went about her
business. In the room was a table surrounded by

fat inhabitants of Alkmaar, who had just finished a
Vol. ir.— 11

162 ALKMAAE.

tremendous dinner, and, enveloped in clouds of smoke,
were digesting their food, chattering and laughing
all the while in the liveliest manner. Seeing me
quite alone and immovable in a corner, every now
and then they cast a pitying glance at me, and one
or two whispered some words to their neighbors
which I imagined expressed the same sentiment as
their looks. There is nothing more disconcerting to
a stranger who is already uncomfortable than to see
that he is regarded as an object of pity by a company
of merry natives. I can imagine what a forlorn
appearance I must have presented at that moment.
After some moments one of the fat citizens arose, took
his hat, and prepared to go out. When he approached
me he stopped and said with a pitifully courteous
smile, accentuating every syllable : "Alkmaar . . .
pas de plaisir ; Paris . . . toujours plaisir." He
had taken me for a Frenchman. Having said this,
he put on his hat, and, thinking he had consoled me
sufficiently, he turned his back and walked solemnly
out of the room. He was the only one of the com-
pany who knew a word of French. I felt a lively
feeling of gratitude to him, and than relapsed into
my former gloomy state. Another quarter of an
hour passed, and at last a waiter came in. I breathed
afresh, ran to him, and told him I wanted to go away.
Oh, what a delusion ! He did not understand a syl-
lable. I took him by one arm, led him to my room,
pointed to my valise, and signed to him that I wished

ALKMAAR. 163

to depart. It is easy to say, "I -wish to leave," but
Low ? By boat ? by rail ? by trekschuit f He an-
swered that be had not understood. I tried to make
him understand that I wanted a carriage. He under-
stood, and replied by signs that there were no car-
riages. Well, I will search for the railway-station
myself, thought I, and by gestures I demanded a
porter. He retorted there were no porters. I asked,
with my watch in my hand, at what hour the master
would return. He answered that he would not return
at all. I signed to him to carry my bag himself.
He responded that he could not. I then begged him
with a desperate gesture to tell me what I was to do.
He did not answer, but stood looking at me in silence.
On such occasions I sadly lose my patience, my cour-
age, and my head. I began again to speak, in a
confused mixture of German, French, and Italian,
opening and shutting my guide, tracing and cross-
ing out on my copy-book lines and twirls that were
meant to represent ships and engines ; I tore up and
down the room like a maniac, until the poor young
man, whether bored or terrified I do not know, slipped
out of the door and left me in the lurch. Then I
seized my portmanteau and ran down stairs. The
jovial citizens of the table, warned by the waiter of
my strange agitation, had left the room, and seeing me
coming down had stopped in the vestibule, staring at
me as at a lunatic who had escaped from an asylum.
I flushed fiery red, which increased their surprise.

164 ALKMAAK.

When I reached the entrance I let my heavy port-
manteau fall and stood motionless, looking at the
toes of my spectators' boots. They all stared at me
in silence. I was more dejected than I had ever
been in all my life. Why, I do not know. I only
know that there Avas a mist before my eyes and that
I would have given a year of my life to disappear
like a flash of lightning. I cursed travelling, Alk-
maar, the Dutch language, my stupidity, and I
thought of my home as if I were a fugitive aban-
doned by God and man.

Suddenly a boy appeared, Avhence I do not know,
took my portmanteau, and started rapidly away, sign-
ing to me to follow. I followed him without demur,
crossed a street, passed through a gate and a court-
yard, and arrived at another gate which opened into
another street, where the boy stopped, threw down
the portmanteau, took his tip, and went away without
answering my questions.

Where had he taken me ? What was I to do ?
How long was I to stay there ? What was going to
happen ? All was a mystery. It was growing dark.
Men and women from the country passed down the
street, groups of boys singing, amorous couples
whispering gayly and merrily in each other's ears,
and all as they passed me solitary and gloomy turned
upon me a glance of surprise and pity. Was I in a
pillory ? Had the boy brought me here with that
design? At first a suspicion of this flashed across

ALKMAAR. 1 G5

my mind, and then it seemed to me this must be the
case. The blood rushed to my head, my heart beat
rapidly, and I seized my portmanteau, determined to
return to the hotel and revenge myself at any cost.
... At that moment I spied a diligence and felt a
ray of hope. The diligence stopped in front of the
gate; a boy standing on the mounting-block made a
sign to me. I ran to him and asked anxiously,
"Does this go to the railway-station?" — "Yes, sir,"
he answered readily in French. " Bound for the
Holder?" — "Ah ! Heaven bless you, boy dear to my
heart!" I cried as I jumped in and clapped a florin
into his hand ; " you have restored me to life !" The
diligence took me to the station, and in a few minutes
I was on my way to the Holder.

Those who have never travelled will laugh at this
adventure, and may say it is an exaggeration or a
fable, but those who have had experience in trav-
elling will remember being in such plights, and
having the same feelings and losing their heads in
the same way, and perhaps recounting their adven-
tures in similar words.

THE HELDER.

THE II ELDER.

The definition given of Holland, that it is "a
transition between land and sea," is more appro-
priate to the land lying between Alkmaar and the
Ilelder than to any other part of the country. It is
true that one goes by land from the one city to the
other, but the land is so threatened, broken, and sub-
merged by the sea that, on looking from the railway-
carriage, one forgets little by little that one is in a
train, and seems to be on the deck of a ship. Not
far from Alkmaar, between the two villages of Kamp
and Fettcn, toward the North Sea, there is a long
stretch of land which is believed to have been one
of the mouths of the Rhine, where the chain of the
downs is interrupted and the coast is lashed so furi-
ously by the sea that, notwithstanding the strong
works of defence, the waters continually gnaw into
the heart of the country. A little farther on is a
large inundated polder across which the great Nor-
thern Canal passes. Beyond the polder, round the
village of Zand, there is a wide barren plain, a mass
of thickets and marshes, with here and there a few
peasants' huts covered with cone-shaped roofs that

1G9

170 THE HELDER.

from a distance look like graves. Beyond the village
of Zand is an immense polder called Anna Paulowna,
in honor of the wife of William II. of Orange, grand-
duchess of Russia, which was drained between 1847
and 1850. Beyond the polder spread vast plains,
covered with underbrush and swamps, extending as
far as the last extremity of North Holland, where
stands the young and lonely town of the Holder, the
dead sentinel of the Netherlands, veiled by mist and
lashed by waves.

The Helder has this peculiarity, that when one is
in the city one looks for it and cannot find it. It
may be said to consist of one very long street flanked
by two rows of small red houses and protected by a
gigantic dyke, which forms a sort of artificial beach
on the North Sea. This dyke, which is one of the
most marvellous works of modern times, extends
almost ten kilometres from Nieuwediep, which is the
entrance of the great Northern Canal, as far as the
fort of the Hereditary Prince, which is at the opposite
end of the city. It is entirely built of enormous
blocks of Norwegian granite and limestone from Bel-
gium, and has a beautiful carriage-road running along
the top. The dyke descends into the sea at an angle
of forty degrees to the depth of sixty metres. At
different points it is fortified by lesser dykes, com-
posed of piles, fagots, and earth, which project two
hundred metres into the sea. The highest tides
never wet its summit, and the unwearied waves

Bebinfc tbe 2>£fee, Ube 1belfcet\

THE HELDER. 171

dash in vain against that ruthless bulwark which
rises before them in a threatening rather than a
defensive attitude, as if it were a challenge of hu-
man patience to the fury of the elements.

The Nieuwediep, which opens at one extremity of
the Ilelder, is an artificial port, provided with large
quays and dykes, which protect the ships that enter
the Northern Canal. The gates of the harbor, called
fan-doors, the largest in Holland, shut automatically
with the pressure of the water. In this port are
anchored a large number of ships, many of which
come from England and Sweden, and the greater
part of the Dutch war fleet, composed of frigates
and small vessels, which are cleaner even than the
clean houses of Broek. On the left side of Nieuwe-
diep is a great marine arsenal where a rear-admiral
resides.

At the end of the last century almost nothing of
the city existed. The Helder was then nothing but
a fishing-village, scarcely marked on the map. The
opening of the great Northern Canal and a short trip
taken by Napoleon I. in a fishing-boat from the Hel-
der to the island of Texel, which may be seen dis-
tinctly from the top of the dyke, transformed the
village into a city. Observing the body of water
compressed between Texel and the bank of Holland,
Napoleon conceived the idea of making the Helder
"the Gibraltar of the North," and commenced the
work by ordering the construction of two forts, one

172 THE II ELDER.

of which was called Lasalle, and is now named the
Hereditary Prince, and the other the King of Rome,
now called Admiral Dirk. Circumstances prevented
him from completing his great design, but the work,
which he rapidly began, was slowly continued by the
Dutch, so that the Helder is now the best fortified
city in the kingdom and capable of containing thirty
thousand defenders, ready to stop the entrance of a
fleet into the Northern Canal and the Zuvder Zee
Gulf; moreover, it is protected at a great distance by
a bulwark of rocks and sandbanks, so constructed as
to be able in extreme cases to inundate all the prov-
ince behind.

But apart from its strategic importance, the Helder
deserves a visit for its amphibious nature, which al-
ways raises in the mind of a stranger a doubt
whether he is on a continent or on a group of
rocks and islands a thousand miles away from the
European coast. Whichever road one takes, the sea
is always visible. The city is crossed and surrounded
by canals as large as rivers, which the inhabitants
cross in barges. Behind the largest dyke is a vast
extent of stagnant water which rises and falls Avith
the tide, as if it were in communication with the sea
by some subterranean passage. In every direction
there is running water, imprisoned, it is true, between
the two banks, but swollen and threatening, and seem-
ing merely to be waiting the first occasion to recover
its terrible freedom. The ground around the town is

THE II ELDER. 173

bare and desolate, and the sky, which is almost always
cloudy, is crossed by flights of sea-birds. The town
itself, formed of a single row of houses, seems to be
conscious of its dangerous position and to expect a
catastrophe from one hour to another. When the
wind blows and the sea roars one would think that
every good citizen could not do better than shut him-
self up within doors, say his prayers, put his head
under the sheets, and await God's will.

The population, consisting of eighteen thousand
people, is as singular as the town. It is a mixture
of trades-people, government employes, naval officers,
soldiers, fishermen, people who have arrived from
India, and others who are preparing to depart
thither, and relatives of both who have gathered
to give the first embrace or last farewell, for this is
the extreme corner of Dutchland, which the sailor
salutes on his outbound voyage and sights on his
return. The town is so long and narrow that few
people are seen, and no sound is heard save the mel-
ancholy drawling songs of the sailors, which sadden
the heart like the far-off cry of shipwrecked men.

Although it is a very young town, the Helder is as
rich in historical records as every other Dutch city.
It saw the Grand Pensionary de Witt cross for the
first time the strait of Texel in a small boat, calculat-
ing himself the depth of the water, and demonstrating
to the pilots and Dutch captains, who would not risk
it, the possibility of the passage of the Dutch fleet sent

174 THE HELDER.

to fio-ht England. In those waters Admirals de Ruy-
ter and Tromp withstood the united French and Eng-
lish fleets. A short distance away, in 1799, in the
polder called Qypt, the English general Abercrombie
repulsed the assault of the French and Batavian
armies commanded by General Brome. And, finally,
since it seems a law of nature that every Dutch town
must witness something strange and incredible, the
Helder witnessed a sort of amphibious battle between
land and sea for which a name is lacking in military
language. In 1795 the cavalry and light artillery,
headed by General Pichegru, rushed across the frozen
gulf of the Zuyder Zee at a gallop, and dashed against
the Dutch fleet imprisoned in the ice near the island
of Texel, surrounded it like a fortress, demanded its
surrender, and took it prisoner.

This island of Helder, which, as I said, may bo
seen distinctly from the top of the dyke of the
Helder,. is the first of a chain of islands extending
in the shape of a bow in front of the whole aperture
of the Zuyder Zee as far as the province of Gronin-
gen, and is believed to have formed, before the exist-
ence of the great gulf, an unbroken coast which served
as a bulwark to the Netherlands. This island of Tex-
el, which does not contain more than six thousand in-
habitants, who are scattered in several villages and
in one small town, has a bay in which men-of-war
and the ships belonging to the East Indian Company
can ride at anchor. At the end of the sixteenth

THE HELDEK. 175

century the ships of Heeinskerk and Barendz left
this bay for the memorable voyage which furnished
the writer Tollens with a theme for his beautiful
poem, " The Winter of the Hollanders at Nova
Zembla."

Here, in brief, is the sad and solemn story, as told
by Van Kampen and sung by Tollens :

At the end of the sixteenth century the Dutch, not
being able to contend hand to hand with the Spanish
and Portuguese for the possession of the Indian com-
merce, thought of forcing a new Avay across the Arctic
seas, by which they might reach the ports of Eastern
Asia and China in a shorter time. A company of
merchants entrusted the adventurous enterprise to
the hands of an expert sailor called Barendz, who
with two ships sailed from the island of Texel on the
6th of June, 1594, for the North Pole. The ship
which he commanded arrived at the most northern
point in Nova Zembla and returned to Holland ; the
other ship took the more familiar way by the straits
of Vaigat, crossed the ice in the bay of Kara, and
arrived at an open blue sea, from which they could
see the Russian coast toward the south-east. The
direction of this coast made them think that the ship
had passed Cape Tabis, which Pliny, who was then
the uncontested authority, had designated as the most
northern point of Asia, and therefore they thought
that they could sail quickly to the eastern and south-
ern ports of the continent, for they did not know

17G THE IIELDER.

that, beyond the Gulf of Obi, Asia extends within the
Arctic Pole for another one hundred and twenty de-
grees toward the east. Consequently, the news of
this discovery, when it was announced in Holland,
was hailed with the greatest joy. Six large ships
were at once prepared and loaded with merchandise
to be sold to the people of India, and a little ship was
despatched to accompany the squadron until it had
passed the supposed Cape Tabis, when it was to
return with the news. The squadron departed. This
time, however, the voyage did not reach their expec-
tations. The ships found the straits of Vaigat all
blocked with ice, and, after having in vain tried to
force a passage, they returned to their country.

After this failure the States General, although
they promised a prize of twenty-five thousand florins
to any one who succeeded in the enterprise, refused
to join in defraying the expenses of a new voyage.
Still, the citizens were not discouraged. Amsterdam
chartered two ships, enlisted some brave sailors,
nearly all of whom were unmarried, so that the
thought of their families should not weaken their cour-
age in the midst of peril, and gave the command of
the expedition to the courageous Captain Heemskerk.
The two ships departed on the 15th of May, 1596.
On one was the master pilot Barendz ; Van de Ryp
was captain of the other. At first they did not
agree on which direction to take, but finally Barendz
was persuaded by Van de Ryp to sail toward the

THE HELDER. 177

north instead of to the north-east. They arrived at
the 74th degree of northern latitude, near a little
island which they named the island of the Bears, in
memory of a fight of several hours' duration which
they fought against a number of these animals.
Nothing was to be seen around them but very high
steep crags, which seemed to enclose the sea on every
side. They continued to sail toward the north.
On the 10th of June they discovered a country
which they named Spitzbergen because of its pointed
rocks ; they believed it was Greenland, and there
they saw large white bears, deer, reindeer, wild geese,
enormous whales, and different-colored foxes. But
when they had reached the 76th and 80th degrees
of northern latitude they were obliged to turn south-
ward, and landed again on the island of the Bears.
Barendz, however, would no longer follow the north-
ern direction that Ryp up to the present had taken,
and turned south-east, while Ryp sailed toward the
north, and so they separated.

Barendz arrived on the 17th of July near Nova
Zembla, coasted along the northern shore of the
island, and continued to sail toward the south.
Then their sufferings began. As they proceeded the
enormous blocks of ice floating on the sea grew more
frequent; they were united into vast layers, and
were heaped up until they formed crags and high,
steep mountains of ice, so that soon the ship found

itself in the midst of a real continent of ice which
Vol. II.— 12

178 THE II ELDER.

hid the horizon on every side. Seeing that it was
impossible to reach the eastern coast of Asia, the
voyagers thought of turning back, but it was already
the 25th of August, at which time the summer in
those regions is coming to an end, and they soon
perceived that return was no longer possible. They
found themselves imprisoned in the ice, lost in a
frightful solitude, wrapped in a fearful mist, without
a goal, without hope, and likely to be buried at any
moment by the icebergs which were floating and
dashing against each other with great fury around
the vessel. One way only remained open to them to
save their lives, or rather one means of delaying
death. They were near the coast of Nova Zembla,
and could abandon the ship and pass the winter on
that deserted island. It was a desperate resolution,
which required as much courage as to remain on
board, but at least it meant movement, struggle, a
new kind of danger. After some hesitation they left
the ship and landed on the island.

The island was uninhabited; no northern people
had ever set foot on it ; it was a desert of ice and
snow, scourged by waves and wind, on which the sun
rarely cast a fugitive and chilly ray. But, neverthe-
less, the poor shipwrecked men burst into shouts of
joy when they put their feet on the land, and knelt
down in the snow to thank Providence. They were
obliged at once to plan for the construction of a hut.
There was not a tree on the island, but, luckily, they

THE IIELDER. 179

found a great deal of driftwood which the sea had
brought from the continent. They set to work, re-
turned to their ship and brought away boards, beams,
nails, tar, packing-cases, and barrels. They planted
the beams in the ice and made a roof of the deck ;
they swung their hammocks from the ceiling, covered
the walls with sails, and stopped the cracks with
pitch. But while they were working they were in
great danger and suffered unheard-of agonies. The
cold was so intense that if they put a nail between
their lips it froze directly, and they tore their flesh
and filled their mouths with blood in removing it.
The polar bears, furious with hunger, assailed them
ferociously among the blocks of ice ; they prowled
round their huts, and even followed them into the
inner part of the ship, and compelled them to stop
their labor to defend their lives. The ground was
frozen so hard that it had to be quarried like stone.
Round the ship the water was frozen to the depth of
three and a half fathoms. The beer in the barrels
was turned to stone and lost all taste, and the cold
was increasing day by day. At last they succeeded
in making their hut habitable, and were sheltered
from the snow and wind. Then they lighted a fire,
and would sleep for some hours when they were not
forced to keep awake by the cries of the wild beasts
that prowled round the hut. They trimmed their
lamps with the fat of the bears they killed through
the cracks of the walls, and warmed their hands

180 THE IIELDER.

in the bleeding entrails, dressed themselves in the
skins, and ate foxes' flesh and the herrings and bis-
cuits that were left from the stores for their voyage.
Meanwhile the cold increased so that even the bears
left their dens no longer. Food and drink froze
even when placed near the fire. The poor sailors
burnt their hands and feet without feeling the least
warmth. One evening, when the)7 had hermetically
shut the hut for fear of being frozen, they almost
died of suffocation, and were again obliged to face
the deadly cold.

To all these calamities was added yet another.
On the fourth of November they looked in vain for
the sunrise ; the sun appeared no more, the polar
night had begun. Then these men of iron felt their
courage give way, and Barendz was forced to hide
his own anguish and use all his eloquence to per-
suade them not to abandon themselves to despair.
Nourishment and fuel began to grow scarce ; the
branches of pine they had found on the shore were
thrown on the fire almost with regret ; the lamp was
fed with so little oil that the darkness was scarcely
broken. But, in spite of all this, in the evening,
when they rested from the fatigues of the day round
their little hearth, they had some moments of merri-
ment. On the king's birthday they proposed a little
banquet with wine and flour paste fried in whale oil,
and drew lots who was to have the crown of Nova
Zembla. At other times they played games, told old

THE HELDER. 181

stories, drank to the glory of Maurice of Orange,
and talked of their families. Every day they sang
psalms together, kneeling on the ice, with their faces
turned toward the stars. Sometimes an aurora bore-
alis tore asunder the fearful darkness in which they
were wrapped, and then they sallied forth from their
hut, running along the banks, saluting that fugitive
light with tender gratitude as if it were a promise of
salvation.

According to their calculations, the sun would re-
appear on the 9th of February, 1597. They were
mistaken : on the morning of the 24th of January,
at a time when they were especially disheartened and
sad, one of them on awakening saw an extraordinary
light, gave a cry, jumped to his feet, and awoke his
companions. They all rushed out of the hut and
beheld the eastern sky illuminated by a bright light ;
the pale moon, the clear air, the summit of the rocks,
and the mountains of ice were all rose-color; in
short, it was the dawn, the sun, life, the blessing of
God, and the hope of once more seeing their native
country after three months of night and torture.
For some moments they remained motionless and
silent, as if overcome by emotion ; then they burst
into tears, embraced each other, waved their rasreed
caps, and made the horrible solitude resound with
words of prayer and cries of joy. But it was a
short-lived joy; they looked into each other's faces
and were filled with fear and pity. Cold, sleepless-

182 THE HELDER.

ness, hunger, anxiety, had consumed and transformed
them until they were no longer recognizable. Nor
were their sufferings ended. In that same month
the snow fell to such a depth that the hut was
almost buried, and they were obliged to go in and
out by the chimney. As the cold diminished the
bears reappeared, and the danger, the sleepless
nights, and the ferocious battles began again, so that
their strength decreased and their courage, which
had been reanimated, fell.

They had one thread of hope. They had not been
able to free their vessel from the ice, and even if they
had been successful in the attempt, they could never
have repaired it so as to make it serviceable ; but
they had dragged a boat and a shallop to the shore,
and little by little, always defending themselves
against the bears, which rushed up even to the door-
step of their hut, they had mended them as best they
could. With two little boats they hoped to reach one
of the small ports of Northern Russia, and, sailing
down the northern coast of Nova Zembla and Sibe-
ria, to cross the White Sea, a journey of at least four
hundred German miles. During the month of March
the changeable weather kept them in continual alter-
nations of hope and fear. More than ten times they
saw the sea clear of ice to the coast and prepared to
leave, and then each time a sudden fall of tempera-
ture heaped ice upon ice and shut the way on every
side. In the month of April the ice was thick and

THE IIELDER. 183

unbroken ; in May the weather was changeable.
During the month of June they definitely resolved to
leave. After they had written out a minute account of
all their adventures, a copy of which they left in the
hut, on the 14th of June, after nine months' sojourn
in that accursed land, they sailed toward the conti-
nent. The weather was beautiful and the sea open
on every side. On those two open boats, although
reduced by so much suffering, they challenged the
furious winds, the rain, the deadly cold, and the
moving ice-blocks of that vast, terrible ocean, in
which it would have seemed a dreadful enterprise to
venture with a fleet. For a long time during the
voyage they had to repulse the attacks of the polar
bears, to suffer hunger, and nourish themselves with
the birds which they killed with stones, and with the
eggs found on the deserted coasts. Yet they held on
their way between hope and despair, rejoicing and
weeping, sometimes regretting that they had aban-
doned Nova Zembla, invoking the tempest, and desir-
ing death. Often they were obliged to drag their
boats over fields of ice — to tie them down to keep
tllem from being blown out to sea : they would gather
together in a group in the midst of the snow to better
resist the cold ; they would grope after each other in
the thick fog, call to each other, hold together so as
not to be lost, and to keep up their courage. But
they did not all resist these horrible trials ; some died.
Barendz himself, who was feeble when he embarked,

184 THE HELDER.

after a few days felt that his end was near, and told
his companions so. However, he did not cease for a
moment to direct the navigation and to make every
effort to shorten for his poor companions the tremen-
dous journey whose goal he knew he could not reach.
His life went out as he was examining a map; his
arm fell frozen in the act of pointing out the far-off
land, and his last words were Avords of advice and
encouragement. At last, in St. Lawrence's Bay,
they met a Russian boat which gave them some pro-
visions and wine, and spoonwort, a remedy for scurvy
— from which several of the sailors were suffering —
which cured them immediately. At the entrance of
the White Sea a thick fog separated the two boats,
which, however, both rounded the cape Kaniniska
safely, and, favored by the wind, in thirty hours cov-
ered a space of a hundred and twenty miles, after
which they met again with cries of joy. But a much
greater pleasure awaited them at Kilduin. There
they found a letter from Hyp, who was in command
of the other ship which had left the island of Texel,
announcing his safe arrival. After a short time the
boat and the shallop rejoined the ship at Kola. It
Avas the first time the shipwrecked sailors of Nova
Zembla had seen the flag of their own country since
they left the island of Bears, and they saluted it
Avith a delirium of joy. The two crews threAv
themselves into each other's arms, recounted their
various vicissitudes, wept over lost friends, forgot

Brcbwa^ ot/IDonks' (Bate, Ikampen.

THE IIELDER. 185

what they had suffered, and sailed together for Hol-
land, where thev arrived safe and sound on the 29th
of October, 1597, three months after their departure
from the hut. So ended the last enterprise conducted
by the Dutch to open a new commercial way to India
across the Arctic Sea. Almost three centuries later,
in 1870, the captain of a Swedish vessel, which was
driven by a tempest upon the coast of Nova Zembla,
found the wreck of their ship and a hut containing
two kettles, a clock, a gun-barrel, a sword, a hatchet,
a flute, a Bible, and some cases full of tools and tat-
ters of mouldy clothing. They were the last relics
of Barendz and Heemskerk's sailors, and were car-
ried in triumph to the Hague and exhibited in the
Marine Museum as sacred relics.

In the evening, as I stood on the summit of the
great dyke of the Helder in the light of the moon,
which would hide suddenly behind the clouds and
then as suddenly reappear in its splendor, all these
images crowded into my mind, and I could not refrain
from looking at the island of Texel and the great
North Sea, Avhich has no boundary except the eternal
ice of the poles — the sea that the ancients thought
was the end of the universe, ilium usque tantum
naturcr, as Tacitus said, — the sea upon which, during
the great tempests, appeared the gigantic forms of
the Germanic divinities; and as I gazed out over that
vast, gloomy waste, the only way by which I could

186 THE HELDER.

express my mysterious fear was by exclaiming softly
now and again, "Barendz! Barendz !" listening to
the sound of the name as if the wind brought it from
an interminable distance.

THE ZUYDER ZEE.

THE ZUYDER ZEE.

I had not yet visited ancient Frisia, the unsub-
dued rebel of Rome, the land of pretty women, large
horses, and invincible skaters, the most poetical prov-
ince of the Netherlands, and on my way thither I
was able to satisfy another ardent desire, that of
crossing the Zuyder Zee, the latest born of all the
seas.

Six hundred years ago this great basin of the
North Sea, which touches five provinces and covers
more than seven hundred square kilometres, did not
exist. North Holland was connected with Friesland,
and where the gulf now extends there was a vast
region dotted with fresh-water lakes, the largest of
which, the Flevo, mentioned by Tacitus, was sepa-
rated from the sea by a fertile, populated isthmus.
It is not certain whether the sea of its own strength
broke through the natural barriers of these regions,
or whether the sinking of the soil of this part of
Holland gave free course to the invader. The great
transformation was accomplished at different times
during the thirteenth century. In 1205, Wieringen,
at the extremity of North Holland, was still joined
to the continent ; in 1251 it became an island. In

189

190 THE ZUYDER ZEE.

subsequent invasions the sea submerged the isthmus
that separated its waters from the lake of Flevo in a
number of places, and finally, in the year 1282, it
opened a gap across this shattered bulwark, rushed
in upon the lakes, overflowed the land, and little by
little, becoming wider and continuing its inroads, it
formed that great gulf which is now called the Zuy-
der Zee, or the South Sea, which, with the arm called
the Y, extends as far as Beverwyk and Haarlem.
Many confused stories are related of the formation
of this gulf — tales of ruined cities and drowned
communities ; and when the one story ends another
begins, of young towns which arose on the new banks,
flourished and grew famous, and in turn declined,
and are now reduced to small villages with grassy
roads and ports choked with sand. Records of over-
whelming misfortunes, fabulous traditions, fantastic
terrors, quaint and antiquated manners and customs,
are to be found on the waters and along the banks
of this unique sea, which appeared a short time ago
and is already strewn with ruins and condemned to
disappear. A month's journey would not suffice to
observe and collect all that is to be seen and heard
there, yet the mere idea of seeing these tottering
towns, mysterious islands, and fatal sandbanks even
from a distance attracted me irresistibly.

On a beautiful day near the end of February I left
Amsterdam on one of the steamers that go to Har-
lingen. I knew that I should never again see the

THE ZUYDER ZEE. 191

capital of Holland. Leaning over the rail of the
prow while the vessel glided from the port, I contem-
plated the great city for the last time, striving to
stamp its fantastic appearance indelibly upon my
memory. In a few moments I could see nothing but
the black indented outline of its houses, over which
the cupola of the royal palace and a forest of gleam-
ing steeples arose. Then the city sank, the steeples
hid themselves one after the other, and finally the
highest pinnacle of the cathedral looked down for
some moments on the general fall, and then it too
disappeared in the sea, and Amsterdam became a
memory.

The ship passed between the gigantic dykes that
close the gulf of the Y, and, rapidly crossing the
Pampus, the great sandbank which almost ruined the
commerce of Amsterdam, entered the Zuyder Zee.

The banks of this gulf are all meadows, gardens,
and villages, which in the summer form an enchant-
ing landscape, but viewed from a ship in the month
of February seem to be only narrow strips of dull
green separating sea from sky. The shore of North
Holland is very beautiful, and along this the vessel
coasted.

As soon as we crossed the Pampus we turned to the
left and passed close to the island of Marken.

Marken is as famous among the islands of the
Zuyder Zee as is Broek among the villages of North
Holland, but in spite of its renown and the fact that

192 THE ZUYDER ZEE.

it is only an hour's journey by boat from the coast,
few strangers and very few Hollanders ever visit it.
This the captain told me as he pointed out the light-
house of the little island, and he added that he
thought the reason of it is that any stranger who
arrives at Marken, even if he be a Dutchman, is
followed about by the boys, observed and discussed
by every one as if he were a man fallen from the
moon. The description of the island explains this
curiosity. It is a strip of land one thousand metres
wide and three thousand long, which was separated
from the continent in the thirteenth century, and in
the customs, manners, and life of its inhabitants still
remains at the same point where it stood six centu-
ries ago. The level of the island is only a little
higher than that of the sea ; consequently it is sur-
rounded by a low dyke which is not strong enough
to save it from inundation. The houses are built on
eight artificial hills and form as many villages, one
of which, the one containing the church, is the cap-
ital and another the cemetery. When the sea over-
flows the dykes the valleys between these hillocks
are changed into canals, and the inhabitants go from
village to village in boats.

The houses are wooden : some are painted, some
are smeared with pitch ; one only, the clergyman's, is
of stone, and before it there is a small garden shaded
by four large trees, the only ones on the island.
Near this house stands the church, the school, and

THE ZUYDER ZEE. 103

the municipal offices. The inhabitants number little
more than a thousand, and they all live by fishing.
Excepting the doctor, the clergyman, and the school-
master, they all were born on the island ; none of
the natives ever marry on the continent; nobody
from the continent comes to live on the island. All
profess the Reformed religion, and all know how to
read and write. In the school, where there are more
than two hundred children of both sexes, history,
geography, and arithmetic are taught.

The style of dress, which has remained unchanged
for centuries, is the same for all, and is most curious.
The men look like soldiers. They wear a jacket of
gray cloth, ornamented with two rows of buttons,
which are generally medals or antique coins left
by father to son. This jacket is like a shirt, but-
toned inside of a pair of breeches of the same color,
which are very wide round the thighs and tight round
the leg, and leave almost all the calf bare. A felt
hat or a fur cap, according to the season, a red cravat,
black stockings, white wooden clogs or shoes some-
thing like slippers, complete this strange costume.

But the dress of the women is even more out-
landish. On their heads they wear an enormous
white cap in the shape of a mitre, all trimmed Avith
lace and embroidery and tied under the chin like a
helmet. From under this cap, which completely
covers the ears, emerge two long plaits of hair, which
swing about on their bosoms, and in front a heavy
Vol. II. 13

194 THE ZUYDER ZEE.

bang projects which is cut in a straight line over
their eyebrows and entirely hides their foreheads.
Their dress consists of a sleeveless bodice and a
petticoat of two colors. The bodice is deep red,
covered with many-colored embroideries which cost
years of work ; hence they descend as heirlooms,
from mother to daughter for several generations.
The upper part of the skirt is gray or blue striped
with black, and the lower part is dark brown. Their
arms are covered almost to the elbow with the sleeves
of a white chemisette striped with red. The children
are dressed almost alike ; the dress of the girls differs
slightly from that of the women ; and on feast-days
every one dresses more luxuriously than on work-
days.

Such is their costume, a mixture of the Oriental,
the warlike, and the sacred, and the life of the inhab-
itants is as strange as their dress. The men are ex-
traordinarily temperate and live to an advanced age.
Every Sunday night they set sail from the island in
their boats, pass the week fishing in the Zuyder Zee,
and return home on Saturday. The women bring up
the children, cultivate the land, and make clothes for
the entire family. Like the rest of the Dutch women,
they love cleanliness and ornaments, and even in their
huts white curtains, glass decorations, embroidered
bed-covers, looking-glasses, and flowers are seen. The
greater part of the inhabitants die without seeing any
other place than their little island. They arc poor,

THE ZUYDER ZEE. 195

bat, knowing no state in life better than their own,
and having no wants or desires that they cannot sat-
isfy, they arc unconscious of their poverty. Among
them there are no changes of fortune nor distinctions
of class. All work, no one serves. The only events
which vary the monotony of their lives are births,
marriages, deaths, a successful week's fishing, the ar-
rival of a stranger, a passing ship, or a storm at sea.
They pray, love, and fish ; such is their life, and so
generation succeeds generation and preserves the
innocence of their habits and their ignorance of the
world unchanged as if it were a holy inheritance.

Beyond the island of Marken one may see on the
coast of North Holland a steeple, a group of houses,
and some sails. This is Monnikendam, a village of
three thousand inhabitants. In former times it was a
flourishing town, and, together with Hoorn and Enk-
huizen, conquered and made a prisoner of the Spanish
admiral Bossu, for which it received as a trophy his
collar of the Golden Fleece, and the other two cities
took his sword and drinking-cup. After Monniken-
dam the village of Volendam appears, and beyond
Volendam the small town of Edam, which has be-
queathed its name to that cheese with a red rind —
fama super etera notus.

A curious legend refers to this town, and is repre-
sented by an old bas-relief which still remains over
the door of one of its houses. Several centuries ago

19G THE ZUYDER ZEE.

some Edam girls who were walking on the shore saw
a woman of strange appearance swimming in the sea,
who every now and then stopped to look at them with
an air of curiosity. They called to her, and she came
nearer ; they signed to her to come out of the water,
and she stepped on shore. She was very beautiful as
she stood before them naked, but covered with mud
and water-weeds, which had grown upon her skin
like moss on the bark of trees. Some believe she
had a fish's tail, but a serious Dutch chronicler, who
affirmed that he had heard the story from an eye-
witness, says she had legs like other women. They
questioned her, but she did not understand, and an-
swered in a sweet voice in an unknown tongue. They
took her home, scraped the weeds from her limbs,
dressed her as a Dutch woman, and taught her to
spin. It is not known how long she remained in
this new state, but tradition recounts that, although
cleansed and dressed, she felt drawn to the sea by
an irresistible longing, and after in vain attempting
several times to return to her native element, for she
was guarded by a hundred eyes, she one day suc-
ceeded at last, and no one heard anything more
of her. Whence had she come? Whither had
she gone ? Who was she ? Who knows ? The fact
remains that all along the coast of the Zuyder Zee
the simple folk still speak of the water-woman of
Edam, and to affirm, as some one once dared to do in
a group of peasants, that this woman must have been

THE ZUYDER ZEE. 197

a seal, would give one the name of an insolent person ;
and I think the peasants are right, for "who is entitled
to talk of what he does not know ? Edam, which was
formerly a flourishing city of more than twenty-five
thousand inhabitants, has been overtaken by the same
fate as the other towns of the Zuyder Zee, and is
now only a village.

From Edam to Hoorn the coast is almost invisible,
so I turned all my attention to the sea. On the
Gulf of the Zuyder Zee one may observe the marvel-
lous mobility of the Dutch sky as if it were reflected
in an immense mirror. The Zuyder Zee is the young-
est sea in Europe, and its appearance presents all the
caprices, the restlessness, the unexpected and inex-
plicable variations of youth. On that day, as usual,
the sky was overcast with clouds, which divided and
reunited continually, so that in one hour there fol-
lowed each other all manner of changes of light, such
as in our country would rarely be seen in the same
day. At one moment the sea would grow black as
pitch, with white luminous lines in the distance like
currents of quicksilver. Suddenly the black would
disappear, and the gulf become flecked with wide
stretches of deep green, as if covered with grass, and
in the blue track of the ship one seemed to see Dutch
meadows and canals which had become detached from
the continent and were sliding alone the water. In
a moment all that beautiful green would change into
a muddy yellow, which gave the gulf the appearance

198 THE ZUYDER ZEE.

of a thick dirty marsh in which grotesque and filthy
animals might swim. One moment the steeples and
windmills on the coast would he hardy visible, like
distant shadows, through the mist, and one would im-
agine that a dark and rainy night was drawing on.
The next moment the windmills, steeples, and houses
seemed to be just at hand, and shone in the light of
the sun as though they were gilded. Beside the ship,
in the distance, along the coast, on the waters of the
gulf, there was a continual flashing and fading of
shadows, lights, colors — an interchange of nocturnal
darkness and noontime light, threatenings of tempests
and smiling weather, and one almost began to believe
that there was some mysterious reason for all those
changes, some significance beyond human compre-
hension, which invisible spectators above could alone
explain. Here and there appeared boats with black
sails which seemed to have been draped in mourning
to carry the dead.

The ship passed within sight of the town of Hoorn,
the former capital of North Holland, where in 1416
the first great net was made for the herring fishery,
and where was born that daring Schouten Avho was
the first to pass the most southerly point of America.
Thence we directed our course toward Enkhuizen.
On that part of the coast which lies between the two
towns extends a chain of villages composed of wooden
and brick houses with varnished roofs and carved
doors, in front of which stand trees with painted

St. Sans ($astbius, Iboorn.

-^ilgil^v

»

".

1,-nnnn

ji B5 B" if ^ -J

THE ZUYDER ZEE. 199

trunks. From the ship one sees nothing but the
roofs of all these villages, which seem to emerge
from the water or to be so many floating prisms.
The red of the roofs, the tip of some steeple, the
arms of a windmill are the only colors and forms
which occasionally vary the equal and tranquil line
of the coast, which is like the outline of an infinitely
thin isthmus. Shortly before arriving at Enkhuizen
one sees the little island of Urk, which is believed
to have formerly been connected with Schokland, an
island lying close to the mouth of the Yssel. Urk is
still inhabited. It is the favorite island of the seals,
who waken the inhabitants at night by their snoring.
Schokland was deserted a few years ago by the isl-
anders, who were no longer able to fight against
the sea.

The steamer stopped at Enkhuizen.

Enkhuizen is the deadest of all the dead cities on
the Zuyder Zee. In the sixteenth century it con-
tained forty thousand inhabitants, sent a hundred
and forty boats to the herring fishery, was protected
by twenty men of war, had a beautiful port, a large
arsenal, and handsome buildings. Now the port is
choked with sand, the population is reduced to five
thousand, one of its former gates is a quarter of an
hour's walk from the first houses of the town, the
streets are grass-grown, the houses are abandoned
and falling to decay, its inhabitants poor and sickly.
No other glory remains to it excepting that of being

200 THE ZUYDER ZEE.

the birthplace of Paul Potter. The ship stopped
some moments before this phantom city. At the
landing there were only a few motionless sailors :
the only part of the town visible consisted of some
houses half hidden by dykes and a high steeple,
which at that moment was playing, with notes as slow
as those of a passing bell, the air 0 Matilda, t'amo
e vero, from "William Tell/' The shore was de-
serted, the docks were silent, the houses barred, and
a large black cloud hovered over the town, like a
pall descending slowly and covering for eternity. It
was a sight that excited both pity and fear.

On leaving Enkhuizen the vessel in a few moments
reached the mouth of the Zuyder Zee, between the
town of Stavoren, situated at the extreme end of
Friesland, and Medemblick, another ruinous town
of North Holland, although at one time, before the
foundation of Hoorn and Enkhuizen, it was the cap-
ital of the province. At this point the gulf is a
little more than half as wide as the straits of Calais.
When the gigantic enterprise of draining the Zuyder
Zee is carried into effect, this will be the place where
the enormous dyke to separate the gulf from the
North Sea will be constructed. This dyke will ex-
tend from Stavoren to Medemblick, leaving a large
canal open in the middle for the tide and the drain-
age of the waters of the Yssel and the A^echt, and
behind them, little by little, the great gulf will be
transformed into a fertile plain. North Holland will

THE ZUYDER ZEE. 201

be joined to Friesland, all the dead towns of the
coast will be reanimated with new life, islands will
be destroyed, manners will change, languages be con-
fused— a province, a nation, a world will be created.
This great work will cost, according to the calcula-
tion of the Dutch, a hundred and twenty-five million
francs. They have been preparing for it many
years, and perhaps the work will soon begin, but,
alas ! before it is completed we who have been born
toward the middle of the nineteenth century Avill have
folded our arms in the form of the cross, as Praja says,
and violets will be srowino; over our heads.

As soon as we had passed Medemblick the steeples
of Stavoren on the opposite bank of the Zuyder Zee
came into view. This is the oldest city in Friesland,
and etymologists say that its name is derived from
the god Stavo, whom the ancient Frisians wor-
shipped. This town is a sad-looking little village
surrounded by great ramparts ami marshes. Before
Amsterdam existed it was a larixe, flourishing;, and
populous city in which the kings of Frisia re-
sided, and where was gathered all the merchandise
of the East and West, so that it received the glori-
ous name of Nineveh of the Zuyder Zee. A strange
legend — which, however, is founded upon a fact, the
choking of the port with sand — explains the first
cause of its miserable decline.

The inhabitants, who had grown immensely rich
from commerce, had become proud, vain, and extrava-

202 THE ZUYDER ZEE.

gant, and their reckless luxury had reached such a
point that they gilded the balustrades, the bolts and
doors, and even the most humble utensils in the house.
This displeased the good god, who determined to
inflict a serious punishment on the insolent town,
and soon found an occasion for doing so. A rich
female merchant at Stavoren chartered a ship and
sent it to Dantzic to take a cargo of some kind of
precious merchandise. The captain of the vessel
arrived at Dantzic, but could not find the goods: in
order that he might not return with his ship empty,
he loaded it with grain. When he entered the port
of Stavoren the female merchant was waiting for
him, and asked him, "What have you brought?"
The captain humbly replied that he had brought only
corn. " Corn !" she cried furiously, with an accent
of disdain and scorn ; " throw it in the sea imme-
diately." The captain obeyed, and the wrath of the
god was kindled at the same moment. In the place
where the grain fell into the water a large sandbank
formed in front of the port, which little by little
destroyed the commerce of the town. This sand-
bank exists in very deed, and is called the Yrouw-
ensand, or the Woman's Sandbank. It is such an
impediment that even the smallest merchant vessels
are obliged to steer with the greatest caution to avoid
running upon it, and not even the great pier that was
built to repair the evil changed the destiny of the
doomed city.

THE ZUYDER ZEE. 203

When our steamer left Stavoren the sun was set-
ting, but, notwithstanding the hour and the season,
the weather was so mild that I was able to dine on
deck, and, inspired by the grand thought of the
drainage of the Zuyder Zee, I drained a bottle of
old Bordeaux to the dregs, without once breathing
upon my fingers. The travellers were all below, the
sea was smooth, the sky was golden, the Bordeaux
exquisite, and my heart at peace. Meanwhile before
my eyes the coast of Friesland unfolded itself, pro-
tected by two rows of palisades, upheld by enormous
blocks of granite and basalt from Germany and
Norway, which give the country the appearance of a
huge intrenched camp.

We passed Hindeloopen, another fallen town,
which has only a thousand inhabitants, and preserves
the eccentric style of dress which was in vogue sev-
eral centuries ago ; we skirted close to a group of
small hidden villages which announced their presence
by raising above the dykes the iron fingers of their
steeples ; and at last Ave arrived at Harlingen — the
second capital of Friesland — to see it still illuminated
by the last glow of the sunset.

FRIESLAND.

FIUESLAND.

As the ship neared the landing-place, I remem-
bered what had befallen me at Alkmaar, and, fearing
that perhaps I should find myself in the same plight
at Harlingen, as I had brought no letters of intro-
duction, I felt anxious. And I had every reason to
feel anxious, for the Frisian dialect is a mixture of
Dutch, Danish, and Old Saxon. It is almost incom-
prehensible to the Dutch themselves, and I did not
understand a syllable of it ; I knew, too, that in
Friesland hardly any one speaks French. I there-
fore prepared myself, with melancholy resignation, to
gesticulate, to make myself a laughing-stock, and to
be led about like a child, and I becran to search
among the crowd of porters and boys waiting for
the passengers on the shore for the man with the
most benevolent face to whom I might entrust my
portmanteau and commit my life.

The ship stopped before I found this face, and I
landed. While I was hesitating between two sturdy
Frieslanders who wished to take possession of me, I
heard a word whispered in my ear which made my
heart leap. It was my own name. I turned round

207

208 FPJESLAND.

as though I had been addressed by a ghost, and saw
a young gentleman, who smiled at my astonishment
and repeated to me in French, " Are you not Mon-
sieur So-and-so?" — "Yes, I am," I answered, "or at
least I believe so, because, to tell you the truth, I am
so stupefied at being known by you that I almost
doubt my own identity. What miracle is this?"
The explanation was very simple. A friend at Am-
sterdam, who had accompanied me to the port in the
morning, had sent a telegram, as soon as the ship
departed, to a friend of his at Harlingen, asking
him to go to the landing-place and wait for a for-
eigner who was tall, dark, and wrapped in a strange
chocolate-colored overcoat, who would arrive by the
evening boat in great need of an interpreter, and
who would be delighted to have a companion. As all
my fellow-travellers were fair, my friend's friend had
easily recognized me, and had come to get me out of
my difficulties.

If I had had the collar of the order of the Annun-
ziata in my pocket, I should have put it round his
neck, but, as I was without it, I expressed my bound-
less gratitude to him in a flood of words which greatly
surprised him. We then entered the town, where I
had intended to remain only a few hours.

Large canals full of ships, wide streets with rows of
neat, many-colored little houses on either side, few peo-
ple to be seen out of their houses, a profound silence, an
air of melancholy tranquillity which brings a thousand

FRIESLAND. 209

vague memories to mind, — such is Harlingen, a town
of little more than ten thousand inhabitants, founded
near the site of a former village which was destroyed
by the sea in 1184. When we had taken a walk
around the streets my companion took me to see the
dykes, without which the town would have been sub-
merged a hundred times, because this entire coast is
more exposed to the currents and waves of the sea
at high tide than any other. The dykes are formed
by two rows of enormous piles, joined by heavy cross-
beams of timber, the whole covered with large flat-
headed nails, which preserve the wood from the small
marine animals that corrode it. Between these piles
there are very strong planks, or rather huge beams
sawn in two and driven into the sand, one beside
another. Behind these there is a wall of cyclopean
masses of red granite brought from the province of
Drenthe, and behind this wall a stout enclosure of
stakes which would suffice to hold back the waters of
a furious torrent. Along this dyke runs a pleasant,
shady avenue which serves as a public walk, from
which there is a view of the sea, a few houses, and
some masts which project above the roofs. When we
passed along it the horizon toward the west was still
glowing, but it was very dark in the opposite quarter;
there was no movement in the port and no boats on
the sea; we met four girls walking arm in arm, chat-
tering and laughing: one of them turned round to
look at us, then they disappeared ; the moon peeped
Vol. II.— 14

210 FKIESLAND.

from behind a cloud, a cold wind was blowing, and
we walked on in silence. " Are you sad?" asked my
companion. "Not at all," I answered, and yet I was.
But why? Who can tell? Even now that place and
that moment remain impressed upon my memory. I
close my eyes and it all returns to me, and I smell
the salt air of the sea.

My companion took me to a club, where we re-
mained until the train left for Leeuwarden, the capi-
tal of Friesland. He was the first Frisian with whom
I had the honor of speaking, and I studied him. He
was fair, erect, and serious, like almost all Holland-
ers, but his eyes were exceedingly bright and ex-
pressive; he spoke little, but his few words were
uttered with a rapidity and force from which one
might infer that his was a much livelier nature than
that of his compatriots on the opposite side of the Zuy-
der Zee. Our conversation turned upon ancient Frisia
and ancient Rome, and was highly agreeable, for he
began speaking of the events of those days most
seriously, as if they had happened a short time ago,
and I drew him on until we settled down to a dis-
cussion as if he were a Frieslander of the time of
Olennius and I a Roman of the time of Tiberius,
each taking his country's part. T taunted him with
the crucifixion of the Roman soldiers, and he an-
swered me calmly : "You were the aggressors, because
so long as vou contented yourselves with taking the
tribute of hides imposed by Drusus we did not resist,

Corn /IDarfeet (3ate, ikampen.

t-

FKIESLAND. 211

but Ave rebelled because Olennius Avas no longer satis-
fied with hides, and wanted our oxen, meadows, chil-
dren, and women, and this meant ruin. Pacem exuere
says Tacitus, nostra magis avaritia quam obsequii im-
patientes, and he adds that Drusus had imposed a light
tribute because we were poor — pro angustia rerum.
And if you stole the oxen and land from the poor,
what did you do to the rich?" When I perceived that
he knew Tacitus by heart, I beat a retreat, and asked
him amicably if he felt a grudge against me because
of the arrogance of my forefathers. "Oh, sir," he
answered, extending his hand, as if I had asked him
the question seriously, " not the slightest!" Unless
I am much mistaken — I said to myself — even the
shadow of such frankness could not be found in our
country. And I could not take my eyes oif him, he
seemed cast in a mould so utterly different from ours.
We talked together until night, when he accom-
panied me to the railway-station, after which he was
going to a concert. In that little city of sailors,
fishermen, and butter-merchants a concert was being
given by four artists, two Germans and two Italians,
who had come expressly from the Hague to play for
a couple of hours at the price of two hundred and
fifty florins. Where this concert could be given in a
town built like Harlingen of liliputian houses was
more than I could understand, unless the players
stayed in the house and the audience stood in the
streets ; and I asked my companion for an explana-

212 FRIESLAND.

tion. " There is one house large enough," he an-
swered. One? thought I; -where is that colossal
house which I have not seen ? We crossed several
dimly-lighted streets, which were rather more densely
populated than the others, and arrived at the station.
" We shall never meet again," said the frank, charm-
ing Frieslander. "Probably not," I answered. We
stood looking at each other for a moment, then we
both simultaneously said ■" Farewell !" and with this
melancholy word we separated, he going to the con-
cert and I to the interior of Friesland.

Friesland is a great plain, the soil being a mixture
of sand, clay, and peat. The country is low every-
where, particularly toward the west, where at the
end of autumn the sea not unfrequently inundates
great tracts. There are a number of lakes which
form a chain across the province from the town of
Stavoren as far as Dokkum. The country is covered
with extensive meadows and furrowed in every direc-
tion by wide canals, beside which, nine months in the
year, graze innumerable herds of cattle, untended
either by shepherds or dogs. Along the North Sea
there are small mounds called terpen, which were
raised by the ancient inhabitants as a refuge for
themselves and their herds at high tide. On some
of these heights villages are built. Other villages
and towns are built on piles on the ground which
has been rescued little bv little from the sea. The

FKIESLAND. 213

province contains two hundred and seventy-two thou-
sand inhabitants, who not only make a living, but grow
rich, from the sale of butter, cheese, fish, and peat,
inasmuch as communication is easy by means of the
canals and lakes. The few trees which hide the
country-houses and villages, the sails of boats, the
flights of lapwings, rooks, and crows, and the noble
herds of cattle that dot the green country with black
and white spots, — these are the only objects that meet
the eye on that vast plain, where the horizon is per-
petually veiled by a white mist. Man, who in this
country has done everything, is nowhere seen. It
seems to be a country in which the water lives and
works by itself, and where the land belongs to the
animals.

I arrived at Leeuwarden in the middle of the
night, and fortunately found a hotel where French
was spoken.

The next morning, very, very early — I believe be-
fore there were a hundred people awake in all the town
— I went out and wandered about the deserted streets
in a heavy, icy rain that chilled me to the bone.

Leeuwarden looks like a large village. The streets,
which are very broad, are crossed by wide canals,
and have on either side rows of tiny houses painted
pink, lilac, gray, and light green ; indeed, all the
Broek colors are represented. The interior canals
join those of the exterior, which extend along the
ramparts of the city, and are connected with other

214 FRIESLAND.

canals leading to the villages and neighboring towns.
There are squares and cross-roads like those of a
large city, and they seem all the larger because of
the small size of the houses, in many of which the
windows are but a few inches from the ground, while
the tops of their frames almost touch the roof. If
one were to heap up entire blocks of houses, they
would not form a building of ordinary size. It
is a very quaint, primitive town, founded by a
population of fishermen and shepherds, which little
by little has been rebuilt, painted, and refined. But,
notwithstanding the fine bridges, the rich shops, and
ornamented windows, its general appearance is so for-
eign to a southern European that it seems to him in-
congruous to see the inhabitants wearing frock-coats
and silk hats like the rest of us. Of all the cities
in the Netherlands, this is the one in which an
Italian feels farthest away from his own county.
The streets were deserted, all the doors were closed,
and I seemed to be walking about an unknown and
abandoned town which I had discovered. I looked
at those strange houses, and said to myself, with sur-
prise, that inside of them there must be elegant
ladies, pianos, books that I had read, maps of Italy,
and photographs of Florence and Rome. As I went
from street to street I found mvself in front of the
ancient castle of the governors of Friesland, of the
house of Nassau Diez, the ancestors of the reigning
family of Orange, and I discovered a most curious

FRIESLAND. 215

prison, a white and red palace, surmounted by a very
high roof and decorated by small columns and stat-
ues, which give it the appearance of a princely villa.
Finally, I came out into a large square, where I saw
an old brick tower, about the foot of which they say
that five hundred years ago the waters of the sea
flowed, and it is now more than ten miles from the
coast. Thence I returned to the centre of the town,
passing through streets as clean as parlors and be-
tween two rows of houses whose eaves I touched
with my umbrella.

In my whole walk the only females I had seen
were a few dishevelled, sleepy old women looking at
the weather from their windows, and it can be im-
agined how curious I was to see the others, not so
much for the sake of their celebrated beauty as for
the strange covering they wear on their heads, which
I had heard discussed, and of which I had read de-
scriptions and seen pictures in every town in Hol-
land. On the previous evening, on arriving at
Leeuwarden, I had seen here and there some women's
heads which seemed to glitter, but I had given them
only a passing glance, without paying them especial
attention. It would be quite another thing to observe
all the fair sex of the capital of Friesland in full
daylight at my leisure. But how could I gratify my
curiosity ? The sky looked as if it would rain all
day ; probably the women would all remain shut up
in their houses, and I should have to wait until the

216 FRIESLAND.

next morning. Impatience was devouring me.
Luckily, there came into my head one of those
bright ideas which on great occasions present them-
selves to the dullest brains. I saw a musician of the
National Guard pass wearing his gala head-dress and
carrying his trumpet under his arm, and I remem-
bered that it was the anniversary of the King of
Holland's birthday. At once it occurred to me that
if the band met it would parade around the town,
and that where it passed the women would look out,
and therefore by putting myself near the head of the
procession, like the street-boys who accompany the
regiments to drill, I could see what I desired to see.
"Bravo!" I cried to myself; and, humming the air
of the " Che invenzione prelibata" from the "Barber
of Seville," I followed the musician. We arrived at
the great square, where the National Guard, undaunt-
ed by the heavy rain, was assembling in the midst
of a crowd of curious people. In a few minutes the
battalion was formed, the major gave a shrill shout,
the band began to play, and the column of soldiers
moved toward the centre of the city. I walked be-
side the drum-major in great glee.

The windows of the first houses opened, and some
women showed themselves with their heads all shining
with silver, as if they wore helmets ; and in fact they
wore two large silver plates which completely hid
their hair and covered part of their forehead, like the
casque of an ancient warrior. A little further on

FRIESLAND. 217

other women appeared at the windows, some wearing
silver, some golden, helmets. The battalion turned
down one of the principal streets, and then at every
door, at every window, at every street-corner, before
every shop, behind every garden-gate, appeared gold-
en and silver helmets, some small, some large, with
or without veils, as bright and shining as if they were
part of a suit of armor. There were mothers in the
midst of a bevy of daughters, tottering grand-dames,
servants holding saucepans, young ladies who had
just left the pianoforte, — all wore helmets. Leeu-
warden seemed to be an immense fortress garrisoned
by beardless cuirassiers, a metropolis of deposed
queens, a city whose population was preparing for a
grand mediaeval masquerade. I cannot describe the
astonishment and pleasure I felt. Every new helmet
that appeared seemed to me the first I had seen, and
made me smile with delight. I thought that the
drummers, the National Guardsmen, and the street-
boys who surrounded me ought to smile too. All
those helmets threw golden and silver reflections on
the windows and the varnished shutters, glittered
confusedly in the gloom of the darkened rooms on
the ground-floor, appeared and disappeared, glimmered
behind the transparent curtains and the flowers on
the window-sills. As I passed the girls on the pave-
ment I slackened my pace and saw the trees, the
shops, the windows, the sky, the National Guard, and
my own face reflected on their heads. In the midst of

218 FEIESLAND.

all these amiably terrible beads, on which not a lock
of bair was seen, I, with my silk bat and long hair,
seemed to be a despicable man unfit for war, and half
expected that at any moment one of those austere
Frieslanders might present me with a spindle and
distaff in sign of derision. But what campaign are
all these women meditating ? I said to myself in jest.
With whom are they going to war ? Whom do they
wish to alarm ? At every step I saw some curious
scene. A boy to tease a little girl was breathing on
her helmet, while she cleaned it directly with her
sleeve, scolding him angrily all the time, like a soldier
whose companion has soiled some part of his uniform
a moment before he is reviewed by his captain. A
young man from a window with the tip of his cane
tapped upon the helmet of a girl who was looking out
of a neighboring window; the helmet resounded, the
neighbors turned, and the girl disappeared blushing.
At the bottom of a passage a servant was arranging
her helmet, using as a looking-glass the head-dress
of her companion, who was bending down before her.
In the vestibule of a house Avhich must have been a
school fifty girls, all with helmets, were arranging
themselves, two by two, in silence, like a troop of
soldiers preparing to make a sortie against a rebel-
lious populace. And in every new street through
which the band marched fresh lesrions turned out to
reinforce this strange, charming army.

At first I was so absorbed in the contemplation of

FKIESLAND. 219

the helmets that I scarcely noticed the faces of the
Friesland women, -who are considered the prettiest in
the Netherlands, and are said to descend in a direct
line from the ancient sirens of the North Sea, and to
have entranced Bismarck, the great chancellor of the
German Empire — a man who is not very susceptible
by nature. Having recovered from my first surprise
at the helmets, I began to consider the ladies them-
selves, and I must say that here, as in other countries,
I saw very few beautiful ones, but these few were truly
worthy of their fame. As a rule, they are tall, broad-
shouldered, fair, straight as the palm, and serious as
ancient priestesses. Some have very small hands
and feet, and, in spite of their gravity, they smile
with such sweetness that it seems to be a distant
reflection of their fabled progenitors. The silver
helmet, which, by binding and concealing; the hair,
deprives them of the most beautiful ornament of
beauty, makes up partly for this defect by showing
the noble shape of their heads and by lending to their
complexions certain white and azure tints which are
inexpressibly delicate. To all appearance they are
not in the least coquettish.

I was very curious to observe one of those pretty
helmeted heads close by, that I might see how the
head-dress was made and how it was put on, and
might learn what rules govern the wearing. With
this object in view I had procured a letter to a family
in Leeuwarden. I presented it, and was received

2-JO FRIESLAND.

most politely in a small house at the edge of a canal.
As soon as we had exchanged greetings I asked to
see a helmet — a request which made my hosts laugh, as
it is invariably the first made by a stranger who arrives
in Friesland of the first Frieslander whom he has the
good fortune to meet. In response the mistress of
the house, a charming, refined lady, who spoke French
well, rang the bell, and at once a girl appeared wear-
ing a golden helmet and a lilac-colored dress. The
mistress beckoned to her to come nearer. She Avas a
servant — a girl as tall as a grenadier, as strong as an
athlete, as fair as an angel, and as proud as a princess.
She quickly understood my curiosity, and stopped in
front of me with her head erect and her eyes cast
down. Her mistress told me that her name was
Sophia, that she was eighteen years old, that she was
engaged to be married, and that her helmet had been
given to her by her fiance.

I asked of what metal the helmet was made.

" Of gold," answered the lady, with evident sur-
prise at my question.

"Of gold!" I exclaimed, equally surprised. "Ex-
cuse me ; will you allow me to ask how much it cost ?"

The lady spoke to Sophia in Frisian, and then,
turning to me, she answered, " It cost three hundred
florins without the pins and chain."

" Six hundred francs !" I exclaimed. " Excuse me
once again ; will you tell me what is her fiance's bus-
mess :

FEIESLAND. * 221

" He is a wood-sawyer," answered the lady.

"A sawyer !" I repeated, and I thought with horror
of the thickness of the book I should have to write
before I could surpass that sawyer in generosity.

"However," continued the lady, "they do not all
have golden helmets. The young men who have little
money give silver ones. Poor women and girls wear
them of gilded copper or of very thin silver, which
cost only a few florins. But their great ambition is
to have a gold helmet, and with this object they work,
save, and sigh for years. And as to the jealousy
aroused, I know something about that, for my cham-
bermaid has a silver helmet and my cook a gold
one."

I asked whether ladies also wore the helmets. She
answered that they wear them very little now, but
that all, even the members of the best families, re-
member to have seen their grandmothers and mothers
wear helmets that were chased and studded with dia-
monds and cost ruinous prices. In olden times they
did not wear helmets, but a sort of very thin diadem
of silver or iron, which little by little was widened
until it covered all the front of the head. All fash-
ions begin to decline when they become exaso-erated,
and now the helmets too arc disappearing. The
women are beginning to regret that they do not
show their fine fair hair. Moreover, the helmet has
the disagreeable effect of hastening baldness, so that
many women, even among the young, have frightful

222 FRIESLAND.

Laid patches on their heads. Doctors, on their part,
say that the continual pressure on the skull does harm
to the bosom, and many affirm that it arrests its devel-
opment; which is quite likely, for, in fact, the Frisian
-women, although they are strong and healthy in ap-
pearance, are very flat-chested. All these reasons
have induced a number of the ladies of the province
of Groningen, where this head-dress is also worn, to
form a society against the custom, and they have
been the first to discontinue it, and thus have per-
suaded many others to do so. It will, however, be
a long time before all the helmets disappear. The
servants, the peasant-women, and the greater part of
the middle class still wear them. The custom has its
defenders and opponents. The latter gain ground
slowly, but the former defend themselves obstinately.

I greatly wished to examine Sophia's helmet, but
it was covered by the usual lace veil, and I did not
dare ask her to take it off. I took the veil by the
hem with the tips of my fingers, and, explaining
myself by gestures, asked if I might raise it.

"Pray do so," said the lady, translating the girl's
answer.

I raised it.

Heavens, what whiteness! I compared her neck,
which was uncovered, with the veil in my hand, and
I could not decide which was the whiter.

Sophia's helmet was very different from the silver
head-dresses I had seen in the street ; in fact, to tell

ffrieslano peasant Woman.

FEIESLAND. 223

the truth, the name of " helmet " ought to be given
only to the golden ones, since the others, although
they seem like helmets to one looking at them from
the front, are really of a different shape. The silver
ones are made of two plates almost circular, joined by
a flexible metal hoop, which passes behind the crown
of the head, and is ornamented by two large chiselled
buttons which stand out upon the temples. These two
bands cover only the front part of the head. The
golden helmets, on the other hand, consist of a very
wide circle which covers the whole of the head ex-
cepting the crown, and grows wider toward the edge,
leaving only a tiny piece of the forehead visible The
plate of metal is as thin and flexible as Bristol-board,
so that it can easily be made to fit different heads.
Under these helmets, whether they are of gold or
silver, black caps are worn, which confine the hair
like a night-cap, and over the helmets arc thrown
lace caps which reach to the shoulders. On this
second cap many women place an indescribable little
hat trimmed with artificial flowers and fruits. Before
noon, if at home or out on business, the common"
women wear the helmet only ; the cap and hat are
put on for the promenade.

While I was observing the girl's helmet the lady
told me of some very curious customs still to be met
with in the country districts of Friesland.

When a young man presents himself at a house to
ask for the hand of a girl, she lets him know at once

224 FRIESLAND.

whether she means to accept or decline his proposal.
If she accepts him, she leaves the room, and imme-
diately returns wearing her helmet. But if she
returns without her helmet, it means that she does
not like the young man and will not become his
queen. Lovers usually give to their fiancee's garters
on which are written verses and words of love and
good wishes for their happiness. Sometimes the
enamored youth presents the girl with a knotted
handkerchief, with inscriptions on the knot and
money or some pretty gift within. If the sweet-
heart unties the knot, it means that she accepts the
young man ; if she does not untie it, the understand-
ing is that she means to refuse him. The greatest
honor for the swain is to be allowed to tie the sandals
or wooden shoes of his goddess, who repays this court-
esy with a kiss. In general, however, the young men
and maidens are allowed the greatest liberty. They
go out walking together as though they were husband
and wife, and often sit for hours together in the house
at night after their fathers and mothers have gone to
bed. " And do they never repent having gone to bed
too early?" I asked. "If there is error it is always
remedied," the lady answered.

During all this conversation the handsome Fries-
land girl stood serious and immovable as a statue.
Before she went out, to thank her with a compliment,
I told her that she was one of the most beautiful of
the warrior-women of Friesland, and begged her mis-

FEIESLAND. 225

tress to translate my words. She listened quite seri-
ously, blushed to the roots of her hair, and then, as
if she had thought better of it, she smiled slightly,
made a half courtesy, and left the room as slowly and
majestically as a tragedy queen.

Thanks to the courtesy of my hosts, I visited a
small museum of the national antiquities of Friesland
which was formed only a few years ago, and already
possesses many precious objects. I do not know
much about these things — I merely glanced at the
coins and medals — but I lingered long in front of the
ancient wooden skates, the rough diadems which were
the originals of the helmets, and before certain curious
pipes found very deep down in the earth, which seem
to antedate the use of tobacco and are believed to
have been used for smoking hemp. But the greatest
curiosity in the museum is a woman's hat, like those
worn at the close of the last century — a hat so absurd
and ridiculous that if the antiquary who showed it to
me had not assured me that he had seen one like it
not many years ago on the head of an old lady at
Leeuwarden on the occasion of a fete in honor of the
arrival of the King of Holland, I should have thought
it impossible that reasonable creatures could ever have
put such things upon their heads. It was not a hat ;
it was a tent, a canopy, a roof, under which a whole
family might have taken shelter from the rain or sun.
It was composed of a circle of wood twice as large as

an ordinary coffee-table, and of a straw hat which had
Vol. IL— 15

226 FRIESLAND.

a brim of the same size, although it was narrower on
one side, so that it had the form of a semicircle. The
circle was ornamented by a deep fringe and had a
small opening in the middle for the head, bnt how it
was fastened on I do not know. When the circle was
fastened, the hat, which is quite separate, was placed
upon it and covered it like the awning of a shed ;
then the edifice was complete. When the wearer
entered a church she took this edifice to pieces, so as
not to take up too much room, and rebuilt it again on
going out. And the hat was considered pretty and
the operation very convenient ! How true is the
proverb, "Everyone to his taste"!

Another polite Frieslander, to whom I was recom-
mended by a friend at the Hague, took me into the
country to see the peasants' houses. We directed our
steps toward the town of Freek, across one of the
most fertile districts of Friesland, passing along a
beautifully paved street as clean as a Parisian boule-
vard, and arrived after a short walk at a house before
which my companion stopped and said in a serious
tone, "Behold the fricsche Mem of the Friesland
peasant, the ancient heritage of his fathers." It was
a brick house with green blinds and white curtains,
encircled with trees and placed in the midst of a
garden surrounded by a ditch full of water. Near
the house was a hayloft built of gigantic beams of
Norwegian pine and covered by an enormous roof of
canes. In the barn were the stables protected by a

FRIESLAND. 227

stout wooden partition. We entered the stable. As
in North Holland, the cows had no litter and were
yoked two by two, with their tails tied to the beams
of the ceiling, to keep them from getting dirty.
Behind the cows there was a deep running streamlet
which carried away any impurity. The pavement,
the walls, and the animals themselves were very
cban, and there wTas no unpleasant odor. While I
was examining every detail of this drawing-room for
animals, my companion, who was a learned agricul-
turist, was giving me valuable information in regard
to agriculture in Friesland. On a farm of from
eighty-five to one hundred acres they usually keep a
horse and seventy cattle. There is a milch-cow for
every two acres, and on almost every large farm they
keep eight or ten large sheep, from whose milk they
make small cheeses, which are sought after in all the
towns of Friesland as a great delicacy. But in Fries-
land the principal product is not cheese, as in North
Holland, but butter. The room where the butter is
made is the sacred recess of the peasant's house. We
were allowed to enter, but it was a great concession,
as outsiders are generally requested to halt on the
doorstep. The room, which was as clean as a temple
and as cool as a grotto, contained several rows of cop-
per vessels filled to the top with fresh milk, already
covered with thick cream. The churn was run by
horse-power, as is customary throughout nearly all
Friesland On one wall hung a thermometer, the

228 FRIESLAND.

windows were curtained, and there was a beautiful
pot of hyacinths on the window-sill. My companion
told me that the Friesland butter is so exquisite that
in the London market, where a great deal of it is
sent, it is sold at high prices. Year by year, in the
different provincial markets, from seven to eight
million kilogrammes are collected. The butter is
placed in little wooden firkins made of Russian oak,
weighing about twenty or forty kilogrammes each,
and these are taken to the municipal weighing-houses
of the cities of Friesland. Here an expert examines,
tastes, weighs, and seals them with the town seal.
After this operation they are sent to Harlingen and
put on a steamer, which carries them to the banks of
the Thames. "This is our wealth," concluded the
polite Frieslander, " and it consoles us for the lack
of the oranges and palms which you, more favored by
nature, possess." Apropos of oranges and butter, he
told me that a Spanish general one day showed a
Friesland peasant an orange and said proudly to him,
" This is a fruit that our country produces twice a
year!" — "And this," said the countryman, holding
a pat of butter before his eyes, " is a fruit that our
country produces twice a day ! " The general was
silenced.

The peasant who accompanied us permitted us to
look into the room where his wife and daughter, one
Avearing a golden helmet and the other a silver one,
Avere working seated at a little table. The room

FRIESLAND. 229

seemed furnished especially to gratify the curiosity
of strangers. It contained great cupboards of antique
design, mirrors with gilded frames, Chinese porcelain,
carved flower-vases, and silver ranged on shelves.
"What you see is the least part," my companion
whispered in my ear, noticing my look of astonish-
ment. " These cupboards are full of linen, jewelry,
and silk dresses, and some peasants have cups, plates,
and coffee-pots of silver; others even have forks,
spoons, and snuff-boxes of solid gold. They earn a
great deal, live economically, and spend the fruit of
their savings in luxuries." This explains the fact
that in the smallest villages there are jewellers' shops
such as are not to be found in many of the large
European cities. There are peasants who buy coral
necklaces that cost more than a thousand francs,
and have more than ten thousand florins' worth of
rings, ear-rings, brooches, and other trinkets in their
chests. It is true they live economically during the
greater part of the year, but on feast-days, on the
occasion of a marriage, and during the kermesses,
when they go to town to enjoy themselves, they put
up at the best hotels, take the best boxes at the opera,
and between the acts uncork many a good bottle of
champagne. A count^man who has a capital of a
hundred thousand francs is not considered at all rich,
since very many are worth two or three hundred
thousand, half a million, and even more.

The character of these country-people — and the

230 FKIESLAND.

same may be said of all Frieslanders — is, by universal
consent, manly, frank, and generous. " What a pity
you are not a Frieslander !" they say to a person
whom they esteem. They are proud of the nobility
of their race, which they consider the first branch
of the great Germanic family, and they boast that
they are the only nation descending from that parent
stock that has preserved its ancient name since the
days of Tacitus. Many believe that their country
was called Frisia from Frisio, the son of Alan, who
was the brother of Mesa and nephew of Shem, and
they pride themselves upon their ancient origin. The
love of liberty is their dominant sentiment. "The
Frieslanders," says their old code of laws, " will be
free so long as the wind blows among the clouds and
so long as the world endures." In fact, Friesland
sends to Parliament the boldest members of the lib-
eral party. The population, which is almost entirely
Protestant, is very jealous of its faith, and no less so
of its language, Avhich has been adorned by a great
popular poet and is everywhere cultivated with af-
fection. The peasants, say the Frieslanders them-
selves, cite with particular pride the illustrious men
who have been born under the Frieslander litem —
the two poets Gysbertus Japix and Salverda, the
philologer Tiberius Hemsterhuys and his son Frans,
the charming learned philosopher whom Madame de
Stael called the Dutch Plato.

On the way to Leeuwarden we met several peas-

FRIESLAND. 231

ants' carts drawn by those famous Friesland horses
which are considered the best trotters in the world.
They are black and full of life, with long necks
and small heads. The finest of them are bred on
the island of Ameland. Their endurance is marvel-
lous, and the}^ are trained for both working and driv-
ing, and, curiously enough in a country where every-
thing else moves slowly, their phlegmatic masters
make them go at a sharp trot even when they are
drawing hay-carts and when there is no hurry. The
horse-races, which are called harddraveryen, are a
time-honored and characteristic spectacle in Fries-
land. In every small town a track is prepared,
divided into two straight parallel courses, on which
the horses race, two by two in succession, and then
the winners race again until one has won all the
races and so gained the prize. The people crowd to
witness these races, and applaud vociferously, as they
do at the skating-matches.

On our arrival at Leeuwarden I saw a most unex-
pected and beautiful sight, a peasants' wedding pro-
cession. There were more than thirty carriages, all
shaped like shells, very high, covered with gilding
and painted with flowers, and drawn by strong black
horses. In each sat a peasant in his holiday best
beside a rosy-cheeked young woman with a golden
helmet and a white veil. The horses were trotting
briskly, the young women were clinging to the arms
of their companions and throwing sweetmeats to the

232 FRIESLAND.

children along the road, their laces fluttering and
their helmets flashing. The bridal train continued
on its way, and disappeared like a fantastic cavalcade
amidst a roar of laughter, the cracking of whips, and
merry shouts.

During the evening in the city I amused myself
by watching the women and girls with their shining
heads as they passed the hotel, like an inspector-
general at a review when the soldiers file past one
by one with arms and baggage. I soon observed
that they were all going the same way ; so I followed
the current, and found myself in a large square
where a band was playing in the centre of a large
crowd, in front of a building whose windows were
all lighted, and from which every now and then
gentlemen with white cravats looked out, who must
have been at some official dinner. Although it was
drizzling, the people stood there immovable : the
women in the front row formed a large circle of hel-
mets round the band, and, seen from a distance by
the light of the street-lamps and through a mist,
really looked like a company of cuirassiers on foot
keeping back the crowd. While the band was play-
ing some soldiers grouped in a corner of the square
accompanied the music by singing, flourishing their
caps, and hopping first on one leg and then on the
other in the grotesque attitudes of Steen's and Brou-
wer's drunkards. The crowd looked on, and I sup-
pose the sight was extremely beautiful and amusing

FRIESLAND. 233

to them, for they were laughing heartily and stand-
ing on tip-toe, pointing, exclaiming, and applauding.
I stopped now and then to look at some Frisian
girl, who, when she saw I was observing her, would
cast at me a warlike glance of defiance, and after-
ward I entered into conversation with a bookseller —
a pleasant occupation in Holland, as the Dutch book-
sellers are generally well educated and courteous.

That night at the hotel I scarcely closed my eyes
for a miserable bell-ringer, who, perhaps because he
suffered from insomnia, took a barbarous pleasure in
giving the sleeping town a concert of all Rossini's
operas and all the popular airs of the Netherlands.
I have not yet spoken of the mechanism of these
aerial organs. Well, this is the way they work :
the clock in the steeple sets a cylinder and a wheel
in motion ; the cylinder is furnished with pins like
those of a hand-organ. To these pins, which are
arranged as the melody requires, wires are attached,
which raise the bell-clappers and the hammers which
move them. When the hour strikes it is answered
by a tune, but by taking away the cylinder one can
play any tune one likes by means of springs moved
by two key-boards, one of which is worked by the
hands, the other by the feet. It requires considerable
strength and is a great effort to play in this way, for
some of the keys require a pressure equal to the
weight of two pounds; yet the bell-ringers and others
take such pleasure in this music that they play by

234 FRIESLAND.

the hour together with a passion worthy of a more
pleasant harmony. I do not know whether the bell-
ringer at Leeuwarden played well or badly, but I am
sure he must have had herculean muscles and an
adoration for Rossini. After I had been put to sleep
by II Barbiere, I was awakened by Semiramide ; then
I dozed off again to the sound of Othello and opened
my eyes to hear Mose, and so on. It was a struggle
between us — vibrations of notes on his side and
curses of malediction on mine. We both stopped at
the same time in the middle of the night, and if we
had made up our accounts I do not know which would
have been creditor. In the morning I grumbled to
the waiter, who, however, was one of those phlegmatic
Dutchmen whose sweet slumbers I think no earthly
or heavenly noise would disturb. I said to him,
" Do you know that the music of your steeples is
very troublesome?" — "Why," he answered inno-
cently, " have you not observed that they possess
every octave with its tones and semitones?" — " Real-
ly?" I said grinding my teeth. "Then the case is
different; excuse me."

Early next morning I left for Groningen, carrying
with me, notwithstanding the persecution of the mu-
sic, a dear remembrance of Leeuwarden and of the
few people I had met there. One thing, however, I
regretted exceedingly, and that was that I had not
seen the beautiful, daring, severe daughters of the
North skate on the ice, for, as Alphonse Esquiros

/n>am Street, Xeeuwarfcen.

FRIESLAND. 235

says, "they pass by wrapped in a cloud and crowned
with a nimbus of gold and lace, like the fantastic fig-
ures in a dream."

The first view of the Dutch plain awakens a vague
pleasing sense of melancholy, and presents in its uni-
formity a thousand new and wonderful appearances
that stimulate the imagination. It ends, however, in
becoming tiresome and tedious, even to those who by
nature are inclined to enjoy and understand its pecu-
liar beauty. There always comes a day to the stranger
travelling in Holland when he suddenly feels an irre-
sistible wish for heights which will elevate his thoughts
and raise his eyes ; for curves along which his glance
may leap, fall, and wander ; for forms that his imagi-
nation can people by likenesses to lions' backs, human
figures, profiles of faces, and outlines of buildings —
which remind him of the hills, mountains, rocks, and
cliffs of his own country. His thoughts and eyes
become weary of roving over that boundless sea of
verdure and losing themselves ; they feel a need of
summits, chasms, shadows, the blue sky, and the sun-
light. Then the traveller has seen enough of Hol-
land and longs impatiently for his own country.

I experienced this feeling for the first time on the
road from Leeuwarden to Groningen, the capital of
the province of the same name. Tired of looking
through the mist at meadow after meadow and watch-
ing the endless chains of canals, I bundled myself up

236 FRIESLA.ND.

in a corner of the carriage and abandoned myself to
dream of the Tuscan hills and the slope of the Rhine,
in the same way that Dante's 3Iaestro Adamo recalled
the streamlets of the Casentino. At a little station
about halfway between the two cities a man entered
the railway-carriage who at first sight seemed to be —
and in fact was — a peasant. He was fair and corpulent
— the color of damp cheese, as Taine says of the Dutch
peasants — neatly dressed, with a large woollen scarf
round his throat and a thick gold chain on his waist-
coat. He gave me a benevolent look and seated him-
self opposite me. The train started. I continued to
think of my hills, and now and then turned to look at
the country in the hope of seeing some change in
the landscape, but, seeing nothing but plains, I un-
consciously made a movement of impatience. The
peasant looked for some time at the country and at
me, then smiled, and, pronouncing the words very
distinctly, said to me in French, " Wearisome, is it
not?"

I answered, hurriedly, no — that I was not at all
wearied by it— that I liked the Dutch landscape.

"No, no," he answered smiling; "it is tiresome;
it is all level, and," accompanying the words by a
gesture with both hands, "there are no mountains."

After some moments, which he employed in trans-
lating his thoughts mentally, he asked, pointing at
me with his finger, "From what country?"

"From Italy," I answered.

FRIESLAND. 237

"Italy?" be repeated, smiling. "Are there many
mountains ?"

"A great many," I replied, "enough to cover all
the Netherlands,"

" I have never seen a mountain in my life," he
continued, pointing to himself; "I do not. know what
they are like — not even the hills of Gelderland."

A peasant who spoke French was a novelty to me,
but a man who had never seen a mountain or a bill
seemed to me a marvellous creature. Consequently I
began questioning him, and. drew some strange facts
from his mouth.

He bad never been farther than Amsterdam, and
had never seen Gelderland, the only mountainous
province in the Netherlands, and consequently he
had no idea of a mountain, excepting from pictures
and illustrations seen in books. He had never raised
his eyes to any greater height than the steeples and
the tops of the dunes. There are thousands of Dutch-
men like him who say, " I should like to see a moun-
tain," just as we say, " I should like to see the Egyp-
tian pyramids." He told me, in fact, that soon he
was going to see the Wiesselschebosch. I asked him
what the Wiesselschebosch was, and he answered that
it was a mountain in Gelderland near the village of
Apeldoorn, and one of the highest in the country.
"How high is it?" asked I.

" One hundred and four metres," he answered.
But the good man had fresh surprises in store for me.

238 FRIESLAND.

After a few moments be asked me again, " Italy ?"

"Italy," I repeated.

He stopped to think, then said, " The law on ob-
ligatory education was defeated, was it not?"

" Zounds !" said I to myself; " we shall hear next
that he subscribes to the Official Gazette." In fact,
a few days before the Chamber had rejected the pro-
posed law on obligatory instruction.

I told him the little I knew about it.

After a short time he smiled, and it seemed to me
that he was trying to form a sentence, then he asked :

"Does Garibaldi still continue" — here he imitated
the action of digging, and then continued— " on his
island ?"

Another surprise ! "Yes," I answered, and stared
at my companion, hardly believing he was a peasant,
and yet there was no doubt of it.

He was silent a while, and then added, pointing at
me with his finger, "You have lost a great poet."

This last sentence almost made me jump from my
seat.

"Yes, Alessandro Manzoni," I answered, "but
how in the world do you know all these things?"

In a moment he will be asking me about the unity
of language, I thought. " Tell me," I said, " do you
happen to know Italian?"

"No, no, no," he answered shaking his head and
laughing — "not at all, not at all."

After this he continued to laugh and puzzle his

FRIESLAND. 239

brains, and I thought he must be preparing some
great surprise for me. Meanwhile the train was
approaching Groningen. When we were in the sta-
tion the good man took up his parcel, looked at me
with a new smile, and. marking each syllable with his
forefinger, said to me in Italian, with a pronunciation
impossible to describe and with the air of one who is
making a great revelation, "Nel mezzo."

"Nel mezzo?" I asked him in astonishment. "In
the middle of what?"

"Nel mez-zo del cam-min di no-stra vi-ta," he said
with great emphasis, and jumped down from the
carriage.

"One moment!" I cried. "Listen! One word !
How in the world — "

He had disappeared.

Did you ever hear of such a people as the peasants
of Holland ? And I can take my oath that I have
not exaggerated by one word.

GRONINGEN

Vol. II.— 16

GRONINGEN.

Groningen is perhaps, of all the Netherlancl
provinces, the one that has been most marvellously
transformed by the hand of man. In the sixteenth
century the greater part of this province was as yet
uninhabited. It was a gloomy country, covered with
thickets, stagnant water, and stormy lakes, constantly
inundated by the sea, infested by packs of wolves,
and darkened by innumerable flights of sea-fowl,
while no other sounds were heard but the croaking of
frogs and the plaintive cry of deer. Three centuries
of courageous and patient labor, often abandoned in
despair, resumed with greater obstinacy, and finally
brought to a happy completion through every kind
of difficulty and danger, have transformed this savage
and terrible region into a most fertile land, intersected
by canals, dotted with farms and villas, where agri-
culture flourishes, labor is amply compensated, com-
merce thrives, and an active and intelligent population
prospers.

Groningen, which in the last century was still a
poor province, paying to the state half of the sum
paid by Friesland and one-twelfth of that paid by

243

2-11 GRONINGEN.

Holland proper, is now, in proportion to the extent
of its territory, one of the richest provinces in the
kingdom, and alone produces four-tenths of the wheat,
barley, and colza grown in the Netherlands.

The most fertile part of Groningen is in the north,
and its cultivation has been carried to such a decree
that the only way to form an idea of it is to pass
through the country. Although I have done this, I
cannot better describe it than by joining my observa-
tions to the information derived from the people of
Groningen and the descriptions of the French agri-
culturist, Count dc Courcy, who, however, passed
rapidly through the country, and of the Belgian, Do
Laveleye, the author of a fine work on the rural
economy of the Netherlands.

The houses of the peasants are extraordinarily
largo, and almost all are two stories in height, and
have many windows ornamented with rich curtains.
Between the road and the house there is usually a
garden planted with exotic trees and covered with
flower-beds, and near the garden there is an orchard
full of fine fruit trees and every kind of vegetable.
Behind the house stands an enormous buildino- which
includes under one very high roof the cow-house, sta-
ble, and hay-loft, and large open mows which can hold
a harvest of a hundred hectares. This buildino; con-
tains all kinds of English and American agricultural
implements, many of which have been improved by
these peasants, — there are long rows of cows, mag-

GKONINGEN. 245

nificent black horses, and everything is marvellously
clean.

The interior of these country-houses will bear com-
parison with the homes of many gentlemen. They
contain furniture made of American wood, pictures,
carpets, a piano, a library, political journals, monthly
reviews, the latest works on agriculture, and some-
times the latest number of the Revue cles Deux
Mondes. Although they are fond of luxury and an
easy life, these countrymen have adhered to the sim-
ple habits of their fathers. The greater number, al-
though they possess half a million francs, more or
less, do not scorn to plough and direct in person the
tilling of their fields. Some of them send one son to
the university, which is not a small sacrifice, as they
consider that a student costs his parents about four
thousand francs a year; but most of them look down
upon the professions of medicine, the law, and teach-
ing, and wish all their sons to remain agriculturists.
These peasants are the backbone of the country,
and there is no more Avorthy class in Holland.
From among them arc chosen almost all the mem-
bers of the different elective bodies, and even mem-
bers of Parliament. The care of their farms docs
not keep them from taking an active part in political
life and public government. Not only do they follow
the progress of the agricultural art, but the advance-
ment of modern thought as well. At Haven, near
the city of Groningen, they maintain at their own

24G GKONINGEN.

expense an excellent agricultural school, which is
directed by an illustrious professor and attended by
more than fifty pupils. Even the small villages have
natural-history museums and botanical gardens which
have been instituted and preserved at the expense of
a few hundred peasants. The country-women on mar-
ket-days visit the museums of the University of Gro-
ningen, and remain there a long time asking for
information and instructing each other. Other
peasants now and then take an educational trip to
Belgium and England. The greater part of them
occupy themselves with theological questions. Many
belong to the sect of the Mennonites, who are the
Dutch Quakers. De Laveleye recounts that, having
seen four beautiful farms on the road that unites the
two flourishing villages of Usquert and Uythuysen,
he asked his host to whom they belonged, and he
was answered that they belonged to four Mennonites.
"They are very comfortably off," added his friend,
" for each of them must have at least six hundred
thousand francs." — " I have heard," continued De
Laveleye, " that among the members of this sect
there are no poor; is it true of this district?" —
"No," his host answered, "and yet, to be just, it is
true, for the only poor member died a few days ago,
and now they have no poor." Pure manners, love
of industry, and reciprocal charity banish poverty
from these small religious communities, in which all
know and guard over each other and give mutual

GRONINGEN. 247

assistance. In short, Groningen is a sort of republic
governed by a class of intelligent peasants — a new,
virgin country, in which no patrician castle raises its
head above the houses of the agriculturists, a prov-
ince in which the soil produces and remains in the
possession of those who make it productive ; comfort
and labor are everywhere united, and idleness and
opulence are unknown.

But the description would be incomplete if I neg-
lected to speak of the special right enjoyed by the
Groningen peasants which is called beklem-regt, and
is considered the principal cause of the extraordina-
rily prosperous condition of this province.

The beklem-regt is the right to occupy a farm by
payment of an annual rent that the proprietor can
never increase. This right passes to the collateral
as well as to the direct heirs, and those who possess
it can will or sell it, and even mortgage it, without
the consent of the proprietor of the land. Every
time, however, that this right passes into different
hands, whether by sale or inheritance, the proprietor
must receive one or two years' rent. The buildings
on the farm generally belong to the holder of the
beklem-regt., who, when his rents fall due, can demand
the price of the materials. The possessor of the bek-
lem-regt pays all the taxes, cannot change the shape
of the property, and cannot diminish its value. The
beklem-regt is indivisible. Only one person can pos-
sess it, and consequently only one of his heirs can

248 GRONINGEN.

receive it. However, when the sum stipulated in case
of the transference of the belrtem-regt into other hands
is paid, the husband can inscribe his wife and a wife
her husband, and then the surviving consort inherits
part of the right. When the tenant fails or does not
pay the rent, the beklem-regt is at once annulled ; his
creditors can sell it, but those who buy it must first
of all pay the proprietor all the outstanding debts.
Little is known of the origin of this hereditary
farm-letting. It appears that it began in the Middle
Ages, in Groningen, on the farms belonging to the con-
vents. The land was then of little value, and the
monks were glad to give a certain part of their pos-
sessions to cultivators on condition that they should
pay them a certain annual rent and another sum
whenever it was transferred. This contract assured
to the convent a fixed income, and exempted it from
occupying itself with farms which were generally
unproductive. The example of the convents was
afterward followed by proprietors of large tracts of
land and by the civil corporations. They reserved to
themselves the power of discharging the tenant every
ten years, but did not avail themselves of this right,
because by so doing they would have been obliged to
pay the value of the buildings which had been erected
on their land, and they could not easily have found
another tenant. During the disturbances of the sev-
enteenth century the right became hereditary: juris-
prudence and habit determined the points that were

GEONINGEN. 249

subjects of controversy, a clearer statement of the
right was drawn up and generally accepted, and from
that time the beklem-regt has been maintained side
by side with the code of laws, and little by little
it has become diffused over the whole province of
Groningen.

It is easv to understand the advantages that result
to agriculture from such a contract. By virtue of the
beklem-regt the cultivators have the strongest interest
in making every possible effort to increase the pro-
ductiveness of their land, as they are sure of being
the only ones to enjoy the fruits of all the improve-
ments they introduce. They are not obliged, as
tenants generally are, to pay a higher rent as they
succeed in increasing the fertility of the land they
cultivate. With these privileges they undertake the
boldest enterprises, introduce the most arduous inno-
vations, and carry out the costliest improvements.
The legitimate recompense of labor is the certain and
entire income resulting from that labor. Thus the
beklem-regt has become a very strong stimulus to
industry, study, and perfection.

Hence a curious custom descending from the Mid-
dle Ages has created a class of farmers who enjoy all
the benefits of property, excepting that they do not
reserve all the net profit, which probably would lie
just enough to dissuade them from tilling the soil.
Instead of being tenants who are continually afraid
of losing their land, opposed to every costly innova-

250 GRONINGEN.

tion, subject to a master, and determined to conceal
their prosperity, the people of Groningen enjoy the
profits without being the proprietors: they are dig-
nified, simple in their manners, eager for instruction,
the value of which they thoroughly appreciate, and
open to every improvement. They are a class of
peasants who practise agriculture not as mechanical
work and a despised profession, but as a noble oc-
cupation which requires the exercise of the highest
faculties of intelligence, and procures them means,
social standing, and public respect — country-folk who
are economical in the present, lavish for the future,
submissive to every kind of sacrifice to fertilize their
land, to enlarge their houses, to acquire the best ag-
ricultural tools and the finest breed of animals ; in
short, a rural population contented with their condi-
tion, because their fortune depends only upon their
own activity and foresight.

So long as the holder of the beklem-regt cultivates
the land himself, this hereditary tenure produces only
good effects. These good effects cease, however, when,
taking advantage of his ri^ht to sub-let, he cedes to
another the right of enjoying the usufruct of the farm
for a given sum, with which he continues to pay the
proprietor. In this case all the defects of the usual
system are revived, with the difference that the sub-
letting farmer has to maintain two idlers instead of
one. Sub-letting was seldom heard of formerly,
because the net profit of the farm barely sufficed to

GRONINGEN. 251

support the family of the holder of the behlem-regt
when he cultivated the farm himself. But since all
farm produce has become dearer, and, above all, since
the opening of trade with England, the profits are
considerable — sufficient, indeed, for the holder of the
beklem-regt to find a second tenant ready to pay him
a higher rent than that which he has to pay to the
proprietor. So the custom of sub-letting is beginning
to spread, and if it becomes general in the future it
will be attended by disastrous consequences.

Meanwhile, when we try to imagine what the future
state of society will be, we generally desire these two
things to occur : first, an increase in production ;
secondly, a division of wealth according to the prin-
ciples of justice. One requirement of such justice is
that the fruit of his own labor and improvements
shall be assured to the laborer. Therefore it is con-
soling and pleasant to see an ancient custom, which
in part responds to this economical ideal, established
on the distant shores of the North Sea, and giving to
all the province an extraordinary and equally-dis-
tributed prosperity.

A serious objection was raised to De Laveleye's
opinions on this subject. He was asked whether the
unexampled prosperity of Groningen was really due
to the beMem-regt, to this hereditary farm-letting,
which in other places bad produced quite a different
result, or whether it did not result rather from tlio
exceptional fertility of the soil. De Laveleye an-

252 GRONINGEN.

swered this objection by the statement that the same
extraordinary prosperity and perfection of agriculture
exists in the turf zone of Groningen, which is any-
thing but fertile, and is not to be found again, except
in a lesser degree, in Friesland, where the soil is of the
same character. If hereditary farm-letting has not
produced in other countries the same results that it
has produced in Groningen, it is because in other
countries it is conducted differently. An example of
this is to be found in some provinces in Italy, where
the condotto di livello, which is very much like a beldem-
regt, fetters the liberty of the farmer by obliging him
to furnish the proprietor every year with a given
quantity of a particular product. All Dutch econ-
omists, he concludes, are agreed in recognizing the
excellent effects of this custom, and affirm that Gron-
ingen owes its riches to the beklem-regt, and in the
agricultural congresses where this question is dis-
cussed the desire prevails that the system shall be
adopted in other provinces also.

I continued my excursion across the Groningen
country, and arrived at the coast of the North Sea in
the neighborhood of the mouth of the Dollart. This
gulf did not exist before the thirteenth century. The
river Eem flowed directly into the sea, and Groningen
was joined to TIanover. The sea destroyed the boggy
region which extended between the two provinces, and
in the sixteenth century formed the gulf, which has
been growing smaller every year by reason of the

GRONINGEN. 253

mud which accumulates along its coasts. A i>reat
many dykes, built one in front of the other, already
show the conquests of the land over the sea, and
fresh gains are continually being made, which go on
increasing the agricultural domain of Groningen,
and one sees fields of barley and colza where a few
years ago the waves dashed furiously and the boats
of the fishermen were wrecked. From the top of the
dykes that protect those coasts it is beautiful to see
how sea and land meet, mingle, and are transformed.
At the foot of the dyke there is a marshy tract, partly
covered by grass and aquatic plants ; a little farther
on this changes to hardened mud, which is almost
like earth ; still farther on there is wet mud, which
grows more and more liquid until it becomes thick,
muddy water; and beyond this -heaps of sand, some
high enough to become dunes and islands. One of
these islands, called Rottum, years ago was inhabited
by a family who lived by seal-hunting. They tell odd
stories of the other islanders — of mysterious hermits,
apparitions, and monsters.

The pools of muddy water which extend to the foot
of the dykes are called wadden, or polders in a state
of formation. They consist of land now covered by
the sea at high tide, but rising little by little as the
currents of the Eem and Zuyder Zee deposit fresh
strata of clay. During low tide herds of cattle wade
across them, and in some places boats can pass ; large
flocks of sea-fowl descend upon them to eat the shell-

254 GRONINGEN.

fish that the ebb tide leaves. In less than a century
birds, bogs, boats, pools, marshes will all have disap-
peared, the islands will have become dunes protecting
the coast, and agriculture will draw from this fresh
field a fine luxuriant vegetation. Thus in this di-
rection Holland advances victoriously into the sea,
avenging its ancient injuries by the ploughshare and
the blade of the scythe.

But, notwithstanding all that I have said, I should
never have formed a conception of the riches of the
Groningen country if I had not had the good fortune
to see the Groningen market.

But before speaking of the market I must speak
of the city itself.

Groningen, so called, as some assert, after the Tro-
jan Grunio, and founded, according to others, a hun-
dred and fifty years before the Christian era round
a Roman fortress that Tacitus called Corbulonis
monumentum (both of which statements have been
affirmed and denied for several centuries without
conclusive decision), is the most important town in
Northern Holland in size and commerce, but it is
perhaps the least interesting to a stranger.

It is situated on a river called the Hunse. at the
junction of three great canals, which connect the
city Avith several other commercial towns ; it is sur-
rounded by high ramparts, built in 1698 by Coehorn,
the Dutch Vauban, and has a port which, although

Ube /I&arfeet Square, Croninoen.

v*-ir*:-

GRONINGEN. 255

several miles distant from the mouth of the Eem, is
capable of holding the largest merchantmen. Its
streets and squares are very wide, its canals as large
as those of Amsterdam, its houses are higher than
those of almost any other Dutch town, its shops are
worthy of Paris, in cleanliness it rivals Broek, and
yet there is nothing strange about it either in form,
color, or general appearance. On arriving there
from Leeuwarden one seems to have come a hundred
miles nearer home — to have re-entered Europe and
to feel the air of Germany and France. The only
singular objects in Groningen are certain houses
covered with grayish plaster, encrusted with small
pieces of glass, which when the sun strikes them
shine with a bright light, so that the walls appear
to be studded with pearls and silver nails. There
is a fine municipal hall built during the French do-
minion, a market-square which is renowned as the
largest in Holland, and a huge church, dedicated
formerly to St. Martin, which presents noticeable
signs of the different phases of the Gothic style of
architecture, and has a very high steeple, which
seems to be formed of five little towers placed one
on the top of the other.

Groningen has a university, and on this account
the neighboring cities have honored it by the name
of Athens of the North. This university, located in
a large new building, has only a small number of
students, as the country-folk, who are the only rich

256 GRONINGEN.

people in the province, seldom send their sons to
study, and the rich gentlemen of Friesland are sent
to the University of Leyden. Nevertheless, it is a
university quite worthy of standing beside the other
two. It contains a fine anatomical room, and a
natural-history museum containing many precious
treasures. The curriculum is much the same as that
of the two other universities. There is, however, a
marked difference in the spirit of the institution, for
by reason of its proximity to Hanover the influence
of Germany in science and literature is very strong,
and the university has a religious character peculiar to
itself. The theologians of Groningen, says Alphonse
Esquiros in his Studies on the Dutch Universities,
form a separate school in the intellectual movement
of the Netherlands, which began about 1838 in the
bosom of that most orthodox of orthodox towns,
Utrecht. A professor of Utrecht, M. Van Heusde,
sought to open a new horizon of religious belief; M.
Ilofstede de Good, a scholar of the Groningen Uni-
versity, shared his ideas and joined him, and thus
was formed the nucleus of a theological society located
in Groningen, which, rebelling against synodal Prot-
estantism and formally disowning all human author-
ity in religious matters, wished to institute a type of
Christianity peculiar to the Netherlands — a type of
which it would be difficult to give a clear idea, for
the reason that the very persons who profess it and
support it b^y their writings give but a dim outline

GRONINGEN. 257

of their beliefs. In all these heterodox doctrines —
which may be introduced into the country without
grave peril, because in the continual flux of religious
thought the usages, traditions, and forms of the old
religion remain immovable — there is one serious and
delicate point upon which the orthodox seek unsuc-
cessfully to impale their adversaries : the divinity of
Jesus Christ. Upon this point the thoughts of the
heterodox are wrapped in obscurity. For them Jesus
Christ is the most perfect type of humanity, the
messenger of God, the image of God. But is He
God in person ? This question they avoid with
every sort of scholastic subtilty. Some, for ex-
ample, say they believe in His divinity, but not in
His deity — an obscure answer which is almost equal
to a denial. So we may consider the heterodox
doctrines of the Hollanders as a sentimental deism
more or less inclined to the poetical part of the
Christian religion. However, the ardor of the re-
ligious controversy has been cooling for many years.
The students of the University of Groningen occupy
themselves more willingly with literature and science,
and with this object they have formed societies before
which lectures are delivered, and where especial
attention is given to applied science — a bias which
is one of the most noticeable characteristics of the
Frieslanders, who have many points of resemblance
to the people of Groningen, and are often closely

related to them by family ties. The students of
Vol. IT. — 17

258 GRONINGEN.

Groningen are quieter and more studious than those
of Leyden, who, so far as this is possible in Holland,
have a reputation for being dissipated.

Besides the glory of the university, which dates
from 1614, Groningen is renowned for having given
birth to several illustrious artists and men of science,
of whom it is delightful to hear Ludovico Guicciar-
dini speak in his lively, polished style. He seems
to have had a special weakness for this town. First
of all he places Rudolph Agricola, " whom among
other writers Erasmus in his works praises highly,
saying that on this side of the mountains for literary
talents there has never been a greater than he, and
that no honest science exists in which he wrould not
be able to hold his own against any one — amongst
Greeks the greatest Greek, amongst Latins the great-
est Latin, in poetry a second Virgil, in oratory a
second Politian ; a most eloquent advocate, a philoso-
pher, a musician, an author of several worthy works,
besides other rare gifts and virtues." Afterward he
mentions " Vesellius, surnamed Basil, an excellent
philosopher, full of doctrine, virtue, and every kind
of science, as the many works he has written and
printed attest; wherefore he has been called the light
of the world." He adds that for fear of not praising
as they deserve this Vesellius and Agricola, who are
"the two stars of Groeninghen," he prefers to be
silent, and to leave a page blank for those who will
be better able than he to exalt their names and

GRONINGEN. 259

their country. In conclusion he cites the name " of
another great man, also a citizen of the same land,
called Rinerius Predinius, the most excellent author
of several books worthy of the highest honor and
praise." Besides these the famous Orientalist Albert
Schultens, Baron Ruperda, Abraham Frommius, and
others deserve mention.

To the eye of a stranger the people of Groningen
differ little from the Frieslanders in dress and appear-
ance. The chief difference is in the head-dress of
the women. At Leeuwarden the greater number of
the helmets are of silver ; at Groningen they are all
of gold, and are perfect in their shape, covering the
entire head, but there are far fewer of them. The
ladies no longer wear them ; the rich peasant-women
have also discarded them in imitation of the ladies ;
and now only the servants may boast of being the
true descendants of the armed virgins who, accord-
ing to the ancient German mythology, presided over
battles.

In regard to their customs and manners I received
from a citizen of Groningen some valuable informa-
tion which is not to be found in any book of travels.
There the conditions of girls and married women are
totally different from those to be found in Italy.
With us, a girl who marries leaves a life of sub-
jection, almost of imprisonment, to enter upon a
free life, in which she suddenly finds herself sur-
rounded by the consideration, homage, and court of

260 GEONINGEN.

people who neglected her before. There, on the con-
trary, liberty and gallantry are privileges belonging
to girls, and married women live a retired life,
restrained by a thousand regulations, bound by a
thousand fears, surrounded by cold respect, and al-
most neglected. The young men devote themselves
only to the girls, who enjoy great freedom. A young
man who visits a family, even if he is not one of the
most intimate friends, offers to take the daughters or
one of the daughters to a concert or the theatre in a
carriage at night without a chaperone, and no father
or mother would think of objecting; and if they were
to object they would be considered silly or ill-man-
nered, and would be ridiculed and censured. A
young man and woman are often engaged to be
married for years, and all the time they see each
other every day, go out walking together, stay at
home alone, and in the evening talk for a long time
on the doorstep before separating. Girls of fifteen
belonging to the first families go quite alone from
one end of the town to the other to and from school,
even toward dusk, and no one notices where they
stop or to whom they speak. However, if a mar-
ried lady takes the least liberty, people never stop
talking of it, but this is such a rare occurrence that
one may say it never happens. " Our young men,"
this gentleman said, " are not at all dangerous. They
know how to pay court to the girls because the girls
are timid, and this timidity encourages them, but with

GRONINGEN. 261

married ladies they do not know what to do. To my
knowledge there have been only two notorious scan-
dals in this city ;" and he mentioned the cases. " So
it is, my dear sir," he continued, slapping my knee
with his hand, "that here the only conquests we make
are in agriculture, and those who desire another field
must affirm before a notary that they mean to fight
according to the fair laws of war and to end with an
honorable peace." Arguing falsely from my silence
that such a condition did not please me, he added,
" Such is our way of living — tedious perhaps, but
wholesome. You drain the cup of life at a gulp ; we
sip it leisurely. Perhaps you enjoy it more at mo-
ments, but we are continually content." — " God bless
you !" I said. " God convert you !" he responded.

Let us now return to the market, which was the
last lively spectacle that I saw in Holland.

Early in the morning I walked about the city to
see the peasants arrive. Every hour a train came in,
from which a crowd poured forth ; by every country
road carriages of many colors drove in, drawn by fine
black horses, bringing to the city majestic married
co.uples ; from every canal sail-boats arrived laden
with goods ; and in a few hours the town was full
of people and business. The men were all dressed
in dark clothes, and had large woollen cravats round
their necks ; they wore gloves and watch-chains, and
each had a large purse of Russian leather, a cigar in
his mouth, and an open, contented countenance. The

262 GRONINGEN.

women were bedecked with flowers, ribbons, and jew-
els, like the Madonnas of the Spanish churches.
When their business is transacted these good people
congregate in the coffee-houses and shops — not as our
peasants, who look round timidly as though they are
asking for permission to enter, but with the manner and
looks of persons who know that they are everywhere
desired and welcome guests. In the restaurants their
tables are covered with bottles of Bordeaux and Rhine
wine, and in the shops the salesmen hasten to show
them their goods. The women are received like prin-
cesses, and in fact buy in a princely way. Such
scenes as these are often enacted, as I heard from
eye-witnesses : A merchant tells a city lady the price
of a silk dress. "Too dear," answers the lady. "I
will take it," savs a countrv-woman standing near,
and she takes it. Another country-woman goes to
buy a piano. The shopkeeper shows her one that
costs forty pounds. "Have you none dearer?" she
asks; "my friends all have pianos that cost forty
pounds." Husband and wife pass before the window
of a print-store and see a fine oil painting of a land-
scape in a gilded frame ; they stop, discover a slight
resemblance to their house and farm, and the wife
says, "Shall we buy it?" The husband answers,
" Let us do so." They enter the shop, heap up three
hundred florins on the counter, and carry the picture
away with them. When they have made their pur-
chases they go to see the museums, they enter the

GRONINGEN. 263

restaurants to read the papers, and take a turn round
the town, casting glances of pity at all the shopkeep-
ers, clerks, professors, officers, and proprietors, who in
other countries are envied by those who till the soil,
while here they are considered as poor people. Any
one who did not know how matters stand would think
on seeing this sight that he had chanced upon a coun-
try where a great social revolution had suddenly trans-
ferred the wealth from the palace to the cottage, and
that the new plutocrats had come in from the country
to laugh at the despoiled gentlefolk. But the evening
is the finest sight of all. Then the country-folk re-
turn to their villages and farms, and curious vehicles
are seen on every road, whirling along at the top of
their speed, trying to pass each -other, the women
spurring on the horses to win the race, the winners
cracking their whips triumphantly, the air echoing
with song and laughter, until the jolly crowd disap-
pears in the endless green of the country with the last
glow of the sunset.

FROM GRONINGEN TO ARNHEM.

FROM GRONINGEN TO ARNHEM.

At Groningen I turned my back upon the North
Sea, my face to Germany, and my heart to Italy, and
began my return journey, rapidly crossing the three
Dutch provinces, Drenthe, Overyssel, and Gelderland,
■which extend along the Zuyder Zee between the prov-
inces of Utrecht and Friesland, a part of Holland
■which if crossed slowly -would be tedious to any one
who was travelling without the curiosity of a farmer
or a naturalist, but which seen in rapid travel leaves
an indelible impression on the true lover of nature.
Throughout my journey the gray monotonous sky
was suited to the appearance of the country, and I
was almost always alone. Thus I silently enjoyed
the view in all its melancholy beauty.

On leaving the province of Groningen one enters
Drenthe, and at once there is a sudden change in the
appearance of the country. Here and there, as far
as the eye can see, stretch vast plains covered with
underwood, without roads, houses, streams, hedges, or
any sign of human habitation or activity. The only
vegetation that rises above the undergrowth are a few
oak trees supposed to be the remnant of ancient for-
ests ; the only animals that indicate to travellers that

2G7

268 FROM GRONINGEN TO ARNHEM.

life still exists are partridges, hares, and wild-cocks.
When one thinks the waste is at an end, another be-
gins ; thickets follow thickets, solitude succeeds to
solitude. On this dreary plain there are many
mounds, which, some believe, were raised by the
Celts, others, by the Germans, in which by digging
persons have found earthenware vases, saws, ham-
mers, pulverized bones, arrows, beads, stones for
grinding grain, and rings which may have been
used as money. Besides these mounds there have
been found, and are still to be seen, some huge
masses of red granite heaped up and arranged in a
form indicating that they were originally erected as
monuments, such as altars or tombs, but they bear no
inscriptions and stand naked and lonely, like enor-
mous aerolites fallen in the midst of a desert. In the
country they are called the tombs of the Huns, and tra-
dition attributes them to the hordes of Attila: the peo-
ple say that they were brought into Holland by a very
ancient race of giants ; geologists believe that they
have been brought from Norway by antediluvian gla-
ciers; historians lose themselves in vain conjectures.
Everything is archaic and mysterious in this strange
province. The life of primitive Germany, the com-
mon tillage of the soil, the rustic trumpet that calls
the peasants to their work, the houses described by
Roman historians, — are all found here in this old
world over which broods the perpetual mystery of an
immense silence,

FKOM GRONINGEN TO AENHEM. 269

" . . . . ove per poco
II cor non si spaura."

As one continues along this road, after a while
one begins to see marshes, great pools, zones of
muddy earth crossed by canals of blackish water,
ditches as long and deep as trenches, heaps of earth
the color of bitumen, a few large boats, and a few
human beings. These are the peat-fields, whose mere
name conjures up before the mind a world of fantas-
tic events — the slow immense conflagration of the
earth, meadows floating on the waters of the ancient
lakes full of animals and people, forests straying
down the gulfs, fields detached from the continent
and scattered by the sea-storms, immense clouds of
smoke driven by the wind from the burnt turf-pits
of Drenthe and sent halfway over Europe as far as
Paris, Switzerland, and the Danube. Peat, "the
living earth," as the Dutch peasants call it, is the
chief source of the riches of Drenthe and Holland.
No country contains more of it or makes a greater
profit out of it. Almost all the people of Holland
burn it in their stoves; it gives work to a large part
of the population and serves innumerable uses. The
sods are used to strengthen the foundations of the
houses, the ashes to fertilize the ground, the soot to
clean metal, the smoke to preserve herring. Boats
freighted with this great national combustible may
be seen everywhere — on the waters of the Waal, the
Leek, the Meuse, on the Friesland and Groningen

270 FROM GEONINGEN TO AKNHEM.

canals, and about the Zuyder Zee. The exhausted
turf-pits are converted into meadows, kitchen-gardens,
and fertile oases. Assen, the capital of Drenthe, is
the centre of this work of transformation. A large
canal, into which all the small canals of the turf-pits
discharge themselves, extends across almost the whole
of Drenthe, from Assen to the town of Meppel. The
Dutch are working everywhere to cultivate the land.
The population of the province, numbering about
thirty-two thousand inhabitants at the end of the last
century, is now almost three times that number.

When Meppel is passed, one enters the province
of Overyssel, which for a long distance presents
much the same appearance as Drenthe — thickets,
turf-pits, solitude. Presently one arrives at a village
which is the strangest that human imagination can
picture to itself. It consists of a row of rustic
houses, with wooden fronts and thatched roofs, which
are scattered along at some distance from each other
over a space of eight kilometres. Every house is
situated on a narrow strip of land which stretches
away as far as the eye can see, and is surrounded by
a ditch full of aquatic plants, on the edge of which
are groups of alder trees, poplars, and ashes. The
inhabitants of this village, which is divided into two
parts, called Rouveen and Staphorst, are the de-
scendants of two ancient Frisian colonies which have
religiously preserved the dress, customs, and agricul-
tural traditions of their fathers, and live comfortably

Ube Sassen^lpoort, Zwolle.

;

T

FROM GEONINGEN TO ARNHEM. 271

on the produce of the ground and some little indus-
tries of their own. In this singular village they
have no coffee-houses and no chimneys, because
their ancestors did not have them ; there are no
roads, because the houses are all in a straight row ;
in fact, there is nothing that is like any other village.
The inhabitants are all austere, sober, hard-working
Calvinists. The men make their own stockings in
the spare time that remains to them after cultivating
the ground, and abhor idleness to such a degree that
when thev go to a meeting of the village council
they take with them their knitting-needles and yarn,
in order that they may not sit with idle hands during
the discussion. The commune possesses six thousand
hectares of ground, divided into nine hundred strips
about five thousand metres long and from twenty to
thirty metres wide. Almost all the inhabitants are
proprietors and know how to read and write. Every
one keeps a horse and about ten cows. They never
leave their colony ; they marry where they are born,
and pass their lives on the same strip of land and
close their eyes under the same roof where their
grandfathers and great-grandfathers lived and died.
As one penetrates into Overyssel the country
changes. Zwolle, the birthplace of the painter Ter-
burg, the capital of the province, a city of about
twenty thousand inhabitants, is the town in which
Thomas a, Kempis, the presumed author of the Imi-
tation of Jesus Christ, lived for seventy-four years,

272 FROM GRONINGEN TO AKNHEM.

dying in the little convent of Mount St. Agnes. It
lias beautiful streets, with rows of birch trees,
beeches, poplars, and oaks on either side — a sight
grateful to the eye after the bare melancholy country
I had passed through. The thickets decrease every-
where; green hillocks are seen, meadows, new plan-
tations, houses, herds of cattle, fresh canals which
run from the turf-pits and flow into a large canal
called the Dedemsvaart, the great artery of Over-
yssel, that has transformed that desert into a flour-
ishing province, where an industrious population is
advancing with the joy of a triumphat army — where
the poor find work, the workman property, the pro-
prietor riches, and all may hope for a brighter future.
At this point the road skirts the Yssel and enters
Salland, the Sala of the ancients, where dwelt the
Franco-Salii before they turned south to conquer
Gaul, and where the Salic law was originated at
Salehcim and Windeheim, which still exist under the
names of Salk and Windesheim. Here the tradi-
tions and agricultural methods of those early times
still linger. Finally, Deventer is reached, the last
city in Overyssel, the town of Jacob Gronovius, of
carpets and ginger-bread. Here is still preserved
the boiler in which the counterfeiters were boiled
alive in the public weigh-house. Near by is the
castle of Zoo, the favorite residence of the King of
Holland. After passing Deventer one comes to
Gelderland.

FKOM GRONINGEN TO ARNtlEM. 273

Here the scene changes. One is passing over the
ground inhabited by the ancient Saxons, the Veluwe,
a sandy region which extends between the Rhine,
the Yssel, and the Zuyder Zee, where a few villages
are lost in the midst of boundless undulating plains,
which resemble a stormy sea, As far as the eye can
see there are only arid hills, the most distant veiled
by a bluish mist, the others clothed in part with the
deep colors of a wild vegetation, in part whitened by
the sand which the wind blows over the surface of
the country. No trees or houses are seen ; all is
lonely, bare, and gloomy like the steppes of Tartary.
The awful silence of this solitude is broken only by
the song of the lark and the buzzing of the bee.
Yet in some parts of this region the Dutch by their
patience, courage, and infinite labor have succeeded
in domesticating pines, beeches, and oaks, in making
fine parks, creating an entire forest, and in less than
thirty years covering more than ten thousand hectares
of ground with productive vegetation, in establishing
populous and flourishing villages where there was
neither wood, stone, nor water, and where the first
cultivators were obliged to live in caverns dug in the
ground and covered with sods.

The road passes near the town of Zutphen, and
soon arrives at Arnhem, the capital of Gelderland, a
renowned and charming town situated on the right
bank of the Rhine, in a region covered with beautiful
hills which give it the name of the Dutch Switzer-
Vol. 11.— is

274 FROM GRONINGEN TO ARM II EM.

land. It is inhabited by a people considered the
most poetical in Holland, and truly described by the
proverb "which runs, " Great in courage, poor in
goods; sword in hand, behold my arms!" But in
spite of this distinction, neither country nor people
present anything remarkable to a visitor from the
south of Europe who has gone to Holland to see
Holland, and therefore all travellers pass them over
quickly.

The same may be said of Limburg and North
Brabant, the only two provinces of Holland which
it seemed to me unnecessary to visit. So when I
had seen the town of Arnhem, I departed for Co-
logne. The sky was darker and more threatening
than it had been all day, and, although in my heart
of hearts I was delighted to return to Italy, I felt
oppressed by the gloomy weather, and, leaning on the
window-sill of the railway-carriage, I looked at the
landscape with the air of one who is leaving his
fatherland instead of a foreign country. Without
perceiving it, I almost had arrived at the German
frontier, absorbed in the thought of the worries,
doubts, fatigue, and discomfort I should have to
endure for many months in the corner of my room
writing these wretched pages, and it was not until a
fellow-traveller told me that we were near the frontier
that I saw we were still in Holland.

As my eyes wandered over the scene I still saw
one windmill. The country, the vegetation, the

FROM GRONINGEN TO ARNHEM. 275

shape of the houses, the language of my fellow-
travellers were no longer Dutch. I therefore turned
to the windmill as a last image of Holland, and
stared at it as intently as I had stared at the first one
I had seen a year earlier on the banks of the Scheldt.
As I gazed, I seemed to see something move within
the spaces of its mighty arms : my heart beat rapidly.
I looked more carefully, and in fact saw the flags of
ships, linden trees along the canals, quaint pointed
gables, windows decorated with flowers, silver hel-
mets, the livid sea, the dunes, the fishermen of
Scheveningen, Rembrandt, William of Orange, Eras-
mus, Barendz, my friends, — all the most beautiful
and noblest visions of that glorious, modest, austere
country ; and, as if I actually saw them, I kept my
eyes fixed on the mill with a feeling of tenderness
and -respect, until it seemed nothing but a black
cross through the mist which enveloped the country,
and when this final shadow disappeared I felt like
one who as he departs on the voyage from which he
will never return watches the figure of the last friend
waving a farewell from the shore fade away from his
sight.

THE END.

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